fl TLE/l FOR GflRlSTiflN UNITY 

A N D ' 



ft BOOK FOR £V&Ry50Dy 



BV JOHIN HUMKEY 





Class 

Book 

Copyri^ht>J".^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






fl FLEfl FOR GHRISTlflN UNITY 



■AND 



ft BOOK FOR tVERYBODY. 



BY JOHN HUNKEY, 

WHO WAS ONCE REGARDED AS A "PRACTICAL" CATHOLIC, BUT WHO IS NO 
LONGER A ROMAN CATHOLIC AT HEART AND IN MIND; 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



ATCHISON, KANSAS. 
1903. 



H\ 






THE tlB(»*RYOP 
CONGRESS. 


Two Copiei R«c«lv»il 


SEP 14 »q03 ' 


Copynehl Entry 


CUS€ Oy xXc. No 


COPY B. 



Copyright 1903 

BY 
JOHN HUNKEY. 

Entered, in the year 1903, at Stationers' Hall, London. 

Entered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, 

in the year 1903, 

BY JOHN HUNKEY, 

at the Department of Agriculture. 

< ' '< '"iLllillG^lJS'QSSSEBVtD. • 



THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO ALL HONEST AND SINCERE 
TRUTH SEEKERS, WHO EARNESTLY DESIRE CHRISTIAN UNITY OR THE 
UNION OF THE CHURCHES THE FULFILLMENT OF OUR LORD'S PRAYER: 
THAT THEY ALL MAY BE ONE.— JOHN 17:21. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Lady with Corset on, Showing How It Distorts the Body - 384 

Ladies in "Evening Dress" - . 386 

Ladies in "Two Lovely Evening Gowns" .... 387 

Cut of Lady and Gentleman "In Society" - - . - 390 

Cut Showing Direction of Magnetic Currents - - - 480 

Cut of Lady Showing Modest Countenance - - - . 497 

Perpetual Adoration of the Eucharistio God ... 545 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

List of publications from which quotations have been made VII 

Preface , XV 

Autobiography .XXV 

CHAPTER. 

I. Everlasting Punishment . . 1 

II. The Atonement 42 

in. The Mass 69 

IV. Invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints 115 

V. Confession 142 

VI, Indulgences and Purgatory 159 

VII. Infallibility of the Pope 176 

Vrn. The Catholic Church no more Apostolic than the Protestant Church is 181 

IX. Deity of Christ and the Trinity 213 

X. Original Sin and Baptism 225 

XL TheDevil 232 

Xn. The Resurrection 259 

Xni. The Bible 272 

XIV. Christian Science 314 

XV. Matter 332 

XVL Evil and Disease 351 

XVn. Christian Science— continued 399 

XVni. Christian Science— concluded 430 

XIX. Evolution and Special Creation 448 

XX. Embryology and Evolution 461 

XXI. Evolution and Special Creation — continued 476 

XXn. Evolution and Special Creation— continued 492 

XXin, Evolution and Special Creation— concluded 513 

XXIV. Arguments Pro and Con the existence of God 536 

XXV. Socialism, Single Tax, Anarchy 555 

XXVL Socialism, Single Tax, Anarchy — continued 592 

XXVn. Socialism, Single Tax, Anarchy— concluded 606 

XXVm. Marriage and Celibacy , 616 

XXIX. Summary and Conclusions 642 

Index 685 



LIST OF PUBLICATIONS FROM WHICH QUOTATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE. 



As I could not tell, whilst writing this book, how often I would quote a certain 
quotation or from any certain publication, and as I wanted to give the reference 
when a quotation was made, at least for the first time, so one could look it up if 
one wanted to, I have used figures to represent the publication from which a quo- 
tation was made, and for the page, instead of each time giving, at the bottom of 
the page, the long title and the author's name. I will give an illustration. Sup- 
posing I quoted from "The Prodigal Son," by Michael Muller, say page 65, and 
wanted to give the reference and the page of that quotation. I would refer to the 
publication and its author as No. 7 and the page 65 as follows: 7:65, instead of each 
time that I made tliat particular quotation or quoted from that publication giving 
the title and the author's name. Those marked with a * are Catholic publications 

*1. St. Benedict's Calendar; Atchison, Kansas 

*2. The Four Great Evils of the Day, Cardinal Manning 

3. Love, Woman and Marriage, Casca Liana 

4. Physiology, Edward Jarvis 
*5. Goffine, Rev. Leonard GoflBne 

*6. A Pioiis Preparation for First Holy Communion, Rev. F. X. 

Lasance. 

*7. The Prodigal Son, Rev. Michael Muller 

8. Orthodoxy, R. G. Ingersoll 

*9. Hell Opened, F. Pinamonti, S. J. 

10. Hell, Dr. J. M. Peebles 

, *11. All For Jesus, Father Faber 

*12. The Spirits of Darkness, Rev. John Gmeiner 

*13. Catechism of the Christian Doctrine, a Jesuit Missionary 

14. The IcoAoclast, W. C, Brann. 

15. History of the Reformation, D' Aubigne 
*16. The Catholic Register, Kansas City, Mo. 
"17. Fifty Reasons Why the Roman Catholic Religion Ought to be 

Preferred to All Others, Duke of Bruns\fick 

18. Saints' Everlasting Rest, Rev. R. Baxter 

19. The Kansas City Times, Kansas City, Mo. 

20. The Evolution of Immortality, S. D. McConnell, D.D.> D.C.L. 

21. Natural Law in the Spiritual World, H. Druramond 
22 The Law of Psychic Phenomena, T. J. Hudson 
23. Public Opinion, Ne-^ York. 



*i 



Vlll 



24. French Revolution and First Empire, W. O. Morris 

*25. Christian Philosophy of Soul, Rev. J. F. Driscoll 

*26. Natural Theology, Bernard, Boedder, S. J. 

27. The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. 

*28. The' Winchester Conference of Missionaries 

*29. Deharbe's Catechism, No. 2 

*30. Deharbe's Full Catechism, No. 1 

*31. The Faith of Our Fathers, James Cardinal Gribbons 

*32. Chips of Wisdom from the Rock of Peter, Rev. J. M. Hay«s 

33. Universalism Against Itself, A. Wilford Hall 

34. The Bible; Is It of Divine Origin, etc., S. J. Finney 
*35. A Short Cut to the True Church, Rev. Edmund Hill 
*36. Little Catechism of Liturgy, Rev. Aug. M. Cheneau 

37. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1894 

38. The Christian Herald, New York 

*39. Notes on Ingersoll, Rev. L. A. Lambert 

*40, Education and the Future of Religion, Bishop Spalding 

*41. The Devil; Does He Exist? Father Delaporte 

42. Mistakes of Ingersoll, J. B. McClure, A. M. 

*43. St. Benedict's Manual, Rev. W. M. Mayer, O. S. B. 

44. Age of Reason, Thomas Paine 

*45. Plain Facts for Fair Minds, Rev. Greorge M. Searle 

46. History of the Christian Church, G. P. Fisher 

*47. A Sure Way to Find Out the True Religion, Rev. T. Beddeley 

48. Reason and Faith; Rev. A. S. Fiske, D.D. 

*49. The Hidden Treasure; or. the Value and Excellence of The 

Holy Mass, St, Leonard of Port Maurice 

*50. The Protestants' Objections to Points of Catholic Doctrine 

*51. Holy Mass: A Morning Paradise, Rev. R. O. Kennedy 

*52. Questions Asked by Protestants Briefly Answered, a Priest 

*53. The Catholic News, New York 

*54. The Catholic Penny Booklet, Rev. James M. Hayes 

55. Apostleship of Prayer League Leaflet, New York 

56. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, T. B. Macaulay 

57. The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Mo. 

58. Christian Science Sentinel, Boston, Mass. 

59. Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures, Volume II., 
14th Edition, 1885, Rev. M. B G. Eddy 

60. The Riddle of the Universe, E. Haeckel. 



* 



61. Temperance Reform, W. H. Daniels, ed. 

*62. Stories for Catholic Children, Rev. A. M. Grussi 

*63. The Correct Thing for Catholics, Lelia H. Bugg 

64. Christian Science Exposed, Rev. John A. Dowie 

*65. Purgatory Opened to the Piety of the Faithful 

*66. Horrors of the Confessional, Dr. Jos. A. Pompeney 

67. Isis Unveiled, P. P. Blavatsky 

68. Conflict Between Religion and Science, J. W. Draper 
*69. The Complete Office of Holy Week 

*70. Why Men Do Not Believe, N. J. Laforet 

*71. The Scapular Book 

72. Herbert Spencer and His Critics, Charles B. Waite 

73. Intellectual Development of Europe, J. W. Draper 

74. Christian Science The Truths of Spiritual Healing and Their 
Contribution to the Growth of Orthodoxy, R. Heber Newton 

75. Catechism for Jewish Children, Isaac Lesser 

76. Josephus, Flavins, Works 

77. The Personality of God and Doctrine of Jesus Christ, Elder Roth 
*78. Advice to Parents, a Priest 

*79. The Church of Christ, a Priest 

80. Evolution of Man, A. Haeckel 

81. Memoirs of R. W. Emerson 

83. Jesus the Healer, and Satan the Defiler, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

*83. Alles fur Jesus, Ausgabe No. I., Benziger Bros. 

*84. Der Goldene Himmelschlussel, Chas. Wilderman, N. Y. 

85. History of the Inquisition, H. C. Lea 

*86. The Life of Martin Luther, Rev. William Stang 

87. Christ's Method of Healing, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

88. Descent of Man, Charles Darwin 

89. History of Christianity, H. H. Milman 

90. Epitomie of Ecclesiastical History, J. Marsh 

91. The Man of Sin Revealed; or an Exposure of the Blasphemous 
Claim of the Pope of Rome, etc., Rev. J. A. Dowie 

*92. The Pope, Cardinal John Henry Newman 

*93. A Popular Manual of the Grand Jubilee of 1901, Rev. Joseph 
Jackman 

94. Rev. Mother Rose Vincent, Bishop McNamara 

95. Mixed Marriage; the Forbidden Fruit for Catholics, Rev. A. 
Stolz 



*( 



•^96. The Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, Pope Pius IX. 

97. The Christian Ordinance of Baptism, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

*98. Tactics of Infidels, Rev. L. Lambert 

*99. The Divinity of Christ, Mgr. Emile Bougaud 

100. The Doctrine of a Future Life, James Strong 

101. Shall We Believe in a Divine Providence, D. W. Faunce, D. D. 
*102. Modern Scientific Views and Christian Doctrines Compared, 

Rev. John GTmeiner 

*103. The Catholic Church and Modern Science, Rev. J. A. Zahn 

104. The Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, Jr. 

105. Scenes Beyond the Grave. Trance of Marietta Davis From 
Notes by Rev. J. L. Scott 

106. "I Will." An Address on Divine Healing, etc., Rev. J. A. Dowie 
*107. Light and Peace, Rev. Quadrupani 

108. Alkoran of Mohammed, George Sale 

109. Science and Health, 123d Edition, 1897, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

110. Evil and Evolution, by the author of "The Social Horizon" 
*111. Short Sermons for Low Masses, Rev. F. HeflFner 

112. Permission and Commission, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

113. Philosophy of Good and Evil, Swami Abhedananda 

114. Talks with Ministers on Divine Healing, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

115. The Talmud, H. Polano 

116. Esoteric Buddhism, A. P. Sinnett 

117. Reincarnation, Swami Abhedananda 

118. The Outlook, New York 

119. Hard Problems of Scriptures, R. A. Torrey, D. D. 

120. Harmony of the Bible With Science, S. Kinns 

121. Substance and Show, T. S. King 

122. Ingersoll Exposed, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

123. Zion's Protest against Swine's Flesh, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

124. Miscellaneous Writings, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

125. A Voice of Warning and Instruction to all People; or an In- 
troduction to the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter Day Saints, P. P. Pratt 

126. Willis' Historical Reader, Based on the Great Events of His- 
tory, W. F. Collins, Ed. 

127. First Principles, Herbert Spencer 

128. Is the Bible Infallible, J. F. Sunderland 

129. Why I Left the Baptist Church, Elder W. H. Kephart 



* 



130. The Ram's Horn, Chicago 

131. The Apocryphal Books of the New Testament 

132. The Principles, Practices and Purposes of the Christian Cath- 
olic Church In Zion, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

133. Common Sense Thoughts on the Bible, William Denton 

134. Retrospection and Introspection, Rev. M. B. Gr. Eddy 

135. Truth, A Catholic Magazine, Raleigh, N. C. 

136. Washington News Letter, Sept. 1901, Washington, D. C. 

137. The Christian Science Journal, Boston, Mass. 

138. The A B C of Scientific Christianity, J. R. Clarkson 

139. Science and Health, 42d Edition, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

140. Unity of Good, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

141. No and Yes, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

142. Christian Science Versus Pantheism, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

143. Elementary Theosophy, F. T. S. 

144. Message to the Mother Church, June 1901, Rev. M. B. G. Eddy 

145. Scriptural References Sustaining the Doctrines of Christian 
Science, John Gillespie 

146. A Complete Expose of Eddyism or Christian Science and the 
Plain Truth in Plain Terms, F. W. Peabody 

147. Christology — Science of Health and Happiness, O. C. Sabin 

148. Christian Science: What It Is and What It Does; or Primary 
Rules of Metaphysical Healing, O. C. Sabin 

149. Samuel Johnson, J. Boswell 

150. Practical Psychology, Boston, Mass 

151. Human Culture and Cure, Part Second, E. D. Babbit, M. D. 

152. How To Be Happy Though Married, E. J. Hardy 

153. Woman In the Case, E. Coues 

154. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, P. Kropotkin 

155. Womankind, C. M. Yonge 

156. What To Do, L. N. Tolstoi 

157. Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton 

158. The Brown Book, Boston, Mass 

*159. Mrs. Eddy and Bob Ingersoll;^or^Christian Science Tested; 
Rev. C. Van Der Donckt 

160. Rudimental Divine Science, Rev. M. B.'G. Eddy 

161. The Atchison Globe, Atchison, Kan. 

162. The Spiritual Life, George A. Coe 

163. Christian Science Not Christian and Not Science, Rev, W. F. 
Richardson 



Xll 

164. Cosmic Philosophy, John Fiske 

165. Ingersollia. Gems^of Thought of R. Gr. Ingersoll, Elmo ed. 

166. Free Thoughts Concerning Religion, A. J. Davis 

167. Angelic Wisdom Concerning The Divine Love and The Divine 
Wisdom, E. Swedenborg 

168. Nature and The Supernatural, H. Bushnell 
*169. Evolution and Dogma, Rev. J. A. Zahn 

170. Principles of Biology, Herbert Spencer 

171. Methods of Study in Natural History, L. Agassiz 

172. Man and His Ancestor, Charles Morris 

173. The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin 

174. The Physical Basis of Life, T. H. Huxley 

175. Principles of Sociology, H. Spencer 

176. Progress and Poverty, H. George 

177. The Ascent of Man, H. Drummond 

178. From the Bail-Room to Hell, T. A. Faulkner 

179. Harmonics of Evolution, Florence Huntley 

180. The Process of Mental Action, or How We Think, M. Faraday 

181. The Cosmos and the Logos, Rev. H. C. Minton, D. D. 

182. History of English Thought in the 18th Century, L. Stephen 

183. The New World and The New Thought, J. T. Bixby 

184. Science and Culture, T. H. Huxley 

185. Fragments of Science, John Tyndall 

186. Heredity and Christian Problems, Rev. A. H. Bradford 

187. Sanctification of Spirit, Soul and Body, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

188. The Kinsman, May 1900, Salt Lake City, Utah 
*189. Unbelief a Sin, Rev. Edmund Hill 

190. Ingersollism, G. R. Wendling 

191. Can the Old Faith Live With the New? G. Matheson 

192. The Social Influence of Christianity, D. J. Hill 

193. Christian Socialism, Rev. M. A. Kaufman 

194. Socialism and Social Reform, Richard T. Ely 

195. Why a "Workingman" Should be a Socialist, H. G. Wilshire 

196. Wilshire's Magazine, Toronto, Canada 

197. A Collection of the Writings of John James Ingalls 

198. Letters to Elder Daughters, H. E. Starrett 

199. The Backsliders' Railroad to Ruin, Chas. J. Burton 

200. How The Other Half Lives, J. A. Riis 

201. The Social Thought, Nov. 1902, Rich Hill, Mo 



* 



Xlll 

202. The Red Light, Herbert N. Casson 

203. Platform Echoes, J. Gough 

204. The Pilgrim, May, 1902, Battle Creek, Mich. 

205. The Gospel of Wealth, Andrew Carnegie 
*206. St. Francis' Manual, Rev. C. Deymann 

207. Facts Worth Knowing, Brooklyn Philosophical Association 

208. Crown of Wild Olives, John Ruskin 

209. The Resurrection, L. N. Tolstoi 

210. The Kansas City Journal, Kansas City, Mo. 

*211. A Sure Way to a Happy Marriage, Rev. C. Sickinger 

212. Christmas Greetings, Rev. J, J. Kennedy 

213. Spinoza, B. Auerbach 

*214. Brown House, Within and Without the Fold, M. M. Lee 

215. Mental Philosophy, Upham 

216. Beyond the Grave, H. Cremer 

217. Thoughts on the Death of Little Children, S. I. Prime 

218. First Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1889, — 
Marriage and Divorce, C. D. Wright 

219. Eve's Daughters, M. V. Terhune 

220. Winsome Womanhood, Margaret E. Sangster 

221. Repentance, Rev. J. A. Dowie 

222. Secret Societies, The Foes of God, Home, Church and State, 
Rev. J. A. Dowie 

223. Searching for Truth, George O. Draper 

The following publications, which influenced some my thoughts 

one way or the other, I also read, but from which I made no direct 

quotations with references: 

Doctors' Plot Exposed; or. Civil, Religious and Medical Persecution 

Evidences of a Future Life, H. H. Brown 

Gist of Spiritualism, Warren Chase 

Is Spiritualism True? William Denton 

Is There a Devil? John Baldwin 

Ministry of Angels Realized, Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Newton 

Obsession: or How Evil Spirits Influence Mortals, M. Faraday 

Orthodoxy False Since Spiritualism Is True, William Denton 

Pro and Con of Spiritualism, H. A. Hart, M. D. versus J. M. Pee- 
bles, M. D. 

Suggestions Without Hypnotism, Chas. M. Barrows 

Creeds Laid Bare, Elder R. Etzenhouser 



XIV 

Reincarnation or Immortality, Ursula N. Gestefeld 

The Heart Of It, Horatio W. Dresser 

Genesis and Ethics of Conjugal Love, A. J. Davis 

Mental Growth and Control, N. Oppenheimer, M. D. 

*Chri8tian Unity, Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy 

A Scientific Demonstration of The Future Life, T. J. Hudson 

The Crime of Credulity, H. N. Casson 

Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man, Dugald Stewart 

How We Get Our Bible, J. P. Smyth, B. D., LL. D. 

Under The Ban, Correspondence between Dr. St. George Mivart and 

Cardinal Vaughn 
The Divine Satisfaction, J. H. Whiton, Ph. D. 
Burdens of Local Taxation and Who Bears Them, Lawson Purdy 
The Fact of God, Emory Miller, A. M., D. D., LL. D. 



PREFACE 

The principal object of this book is to bring about Christian 
Unity or Union of the Churches. In my investigation and analysis 
will be included the teachings of the Catholic, the Protestant and the 
Christian Science Churches; the Bible, Evolution, Atheism, Social- 
ism, Single Tax, and social and economic questions. How much 
nicer would it not be, for instance, were there but One Church, 
instead of as now with the hundreds of sects or churches. How nice 
it would be if one could go to the church nearest one's home and feel 
that one is in the house of the worship of the God Who is, instead of 
as now where a Baptist may live within a block or two of a Catholic' 
or a Methodist, or a Christian Science, or some other church, yet 
passes by all of them and goes from five to thirty blocks to a Baptist 
church. Or a Catholic who lives within a block or two of a Lutheran 
or a Christian, or a Presbyterian, or some other church, passes • by all 
of them and goes from five to twenty-five blocks to a Catholic church. 
Doing that obliges one to tire oneself walking so long a distance in 
the hot sun of summer, or in the biting cold winds of winter, or to 
wading through the mud and slush of the wet seasons of the year, or 
else take the street car, which costs money, and it is not every one who 
can pick nickels and dimes off trees. In a city of this size, or for that 
matter even in mueh larger cities were there no sects in religion but 
One Church, and one could attend the church nearest one's home there 
would be no need of street cars running on Sunday before 1 or 1 :30 
p. M. The reason I know this could be possible is because I have for 
some time been collecting material for this book, and have therefore 
questioned street car men with the purpose of getting information. I 
asked different ones whether the church people did not form a large 
part of the street cars Sunday forenoon's business, when almost the 
same replies were made by different ones at different times. The re- 
plies were that the church people "altogether" and "almost altogether," 
was the street oars Sunday forenoon's business, and that "this one," 
meaning the Catholic church, "is about the best of all." The reason 
for the latter remark is because the Catholic church the remark had 
reference to is located in the very extreme comer of the city. You 



XVI 



can see then from what the car men said that there would be no need 
of street cars running on Sundays before 1 or 1:30 p. M. were' there 
but One Church, and one could attend the church nearest one's home. 
With no street cars running on Sunday forenoons, the employees could 
attend church and still have plenty of time left after church attend- 
ance — the services of the church not lasting over an hour at the most, 
for we must be reasonable and not make them so long as to tire any 
one — in which to get ready for duty to begin about 1 or 1 :30 P. M. 
How nice, you will say, if such were the case. Yet I believe that is 
possible if people would only exercise a little more common sense, 
reason and judgment. Then again see how nice it would be if there 
were but One Church, and the husband and wife and children could all 
go together to the same church, instead of as now where the husband 
either goes to no church, or goes to a Baptist, or a Methodist, or some 
other church, while the wife goes to a Catholic, or a Christian Science 
or some other church. The children likewise scattering in their 
church attendance. Is there any sense or reason for a condition of 
thought other than agreed and united? Are not the husband and wife 
agreed on the question of eating to live; on clothing for protection 
against the weather; on buildings for shelter against storms; on edu- 
cation for their children, etc.? Then why should they not be agreed 
on the subject of religion? Is it not because the simple truths of 
religion have been buried under an avalanche of creeds, dogmas and 
ceremonies, which, to the reasoning and thinking mind, are useless and 
senseless? Can one not do a meritorious deed of relieving the dis- 
tressed, doing justice and of applying the Golden Rule to the aflFairs 
of every day life, for the love of God and of man, unless one believes 
this or that dogma, doctrine, or creed? This then is one of the objects 
of this book, to trim off this useless and senseless ecclesiastical milli- 
nery and theological embroidery, so we can behold the plain and seam- 
less garment of Christ's teachings. The way I intend to do that is by 
striking at, and undermining, the erroneous, idolatrous and blasphem- 
ous fundamental doctrines which have about supplanted the teachings 
of Christ and the Apostles. This I know can only be done by using the 
"arms of the intellect," which the Catholic Church says are the weapons 
she will use in her warfare against Infidelity (1 March, 1902). 

Let me state here that this book is not to be criticised, 
if it be criticised at all, from a literary or a grammatical standpoint. 
For I did not study grammar but one term, during a winter 



XVll 



season of school in the country, nor did I write a composition until 
I went to college at the beginning of my twenty-first year of age. You 
will therefore, no doubt, find many homely, awkward, incoherent and 
ungrammatical expressions and sentences, yet I hope plain and intelli- 
gible enough so you can see the point which I wish to make and that 
is all that I can expect or ask. If I succeed only in constructing a 
rough framework, I will be willing to let abler and greater minds 
put on the polishing or finishing touches. As I believe there is no 
better way to make a subject appeal to one than by "heart to heart" 
talks, I will in another place give a short autobiography of myself, 
touching the principal incidents of my life, so that you may see that 
I speak much from personal experience and observation. I do not 
claim any special divine inspiration, nor had I any visions, trances, or 
dreams in which I heard mysterious voices calling me by name, to 
which I replied by saying, "Lord, thy servant heareth, ask of me what 
Thpu wilt," and that I then received a "call" or "commission" to go 
forth and "save" the world by leading it out of error and darkness into 
the light and the truth. When I came to the conclusions and con- 
victions to which I did, and which will be given in this book, I was 
wide awake, using my Grod-given faculties of l-eason, intellect and 
common sense. 

As I have read many statements which about expressed my senti- 
ments and opinions I will quote them, giving the authors credit for 
them, lest it be said that this book is full of plagiarisms which I am 
attempting to palm off as being original with me. I will try to make 
this book contain the leaven which will start you to do some deep and 
serious thinking. If it will do that, then I believe you will undergo a 
change in your opinions and beliefs, if they have been narrow and self- 
ish, and that you will be ready to meet half way any one who has differed 
from you in the past. If you can do that in one instance then I believe 
you will finally do it in all, and you will then be ready to march towards 
a common platform on which all reasonable and thinking persons 
can stand. Such a result, I believe, would eventually transform this 
"vale of tears" into a beautiful and harmonious sojourning place on 
our way of onward and upward progress, and God's kingdom be 
established and realized here and now on earth as well as in heaven, 
just as Jesus said: "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21), 
not in a far distant and unknown locality. When one beholds the 
luxurious and great wealth of the few on the one hand, and on the 



XVlll 



other, the abject poverty, misery and suffering of the many, one is led 
to believe that there must be a cause for this abnormal state of things. 
Thoughts and convictions have come to me which have led me to believe 
that I have discerned, in part, at least, the cause or causes which I will 
give in their proper places in this book, and will let you answer for 
yourself whether or not I have discerned correctly. 

Whenever I propound questions which I think would be an insult 
to your intellect for me to answer for you, or where I want you to 
judge for yourself, I will leave the answering and judging of them to 
you by using the initials a. f. y., meaning "answer for yourself." 

To believe that the state of things as they now exist is in accord- 
ance with God's will and decree, or is due to the diabolism and malice 
of an omnipotent and omniscient devil, appears to me as a blasphemy, 
and an impeachment of the love, power, mercy, justice, goodness and 
providence of God. Such a view of the situation, or state of things, 
must naturally lead the thinking mind to ask the question. Is there a 
God, such as theologians would have us believe there is? Well, I 
have, since that question arose in my mind, in 1899, read much, 
thought much, and reasoned much and was finally forced to the 
conclusion that there is an intelligent, omnipotent, conscious and 
living Being, over and above all that we behold, which we call 
God. But He is not the the partial, capricious, arbitrary and unreas- 
onable God of the Bible, the Old Testament Jehovah, or of that of the 
Orthodox Church. 

In the meantime I read all the religious, atheistic, agnostic, and 
infidel literature that I could get hold of. I have, therefore, had my 
mind considerably stirred up, confused, and filled with so much 
chaff and dross that I had to sweep aside the whole of it and begin 
to sort out what my reason, intellect and common sense would ap- 
prove. This assortment of fragments put together has, I think, given 
me a fairly good quality of truth. 

If at any time it should seem to you that I have a superabund- 
ance of telling points against any subject that may be under consider- 
ation and analysis, it is because I would rather have ninety -nine points 
to spare than to fall short one of accomplishing my object. I am 
aware of the fact that there is nothing so tenacious as our old and 
cherished religious beliefs, no matter whether they are true or 
false, so long as they were believed by our ancestors. For that reason 
it may sometimes require a shock to the mind to arouse it from its 



XIX 



lethargy in order to start it to think and realize what it is doing. There- 
fore, I may in the course of what I have to say make use of a super- 
abundance of shocking and telling points. 

I must admit that I was so blind and deeply rooted in the old ruts 
of opinions and beliefs that it required shocks to my mind before I 
would yield them up. I often marvel now, when I think of the time 
before the scales were taken from my eyes, so that I can now see 
things by the light of reason and understanding, instead of by blind, 
submissive faith, how it was possible for me to have been so blind as 
to have ever believed a lot of errors, idolatries, and blasphemies as 
truths. The only way I can account for it is that when engrossed in 
the ordinary aflfairs of life earning the bread in the "sweat of the 
brow," one has not much time to think of anything else. Especially 
does one not take the time to investigate when one is offered the par- 
celled out opinions of those whom one believes are infallible teachers 
of truths. One needs to discover but one error when one will begin 
questioning. That was the case with me. 

When lying bedfast and I could do nothing else but thinfe, and 
as the priest told me at the time that I had "too much time to think," 
I did do some deep and serious thinking, with the result that I have 
undergone quite a revolution in my opinions and beliefs. What the 
times and the age demands is something that api^eals to the reason 
and the intellect, and I do not believe any sensible, rational and intel- 
ligent person will cast one's self headlong into destruction if some- 
thing is offered for acceptance which would avert such a disaster if it 
appeals to the reason, intellect and common sense. 

In order that you may judge for yourself whether or not I was 
ever what is called a "practical" Catholic, I will state that in all the 
years that I was out from under the parental roof I never missed Mass 
on Sundays or holy-days, unless I was unable to go to church on 
account of serious illness. An ordinary indisposition or inclement 
weather never kept me from going to church. I seldom missed High 
Mass even though I had gone to Communion at an early Mass. The 
thought of remaining away from Mass on Sundays or holy-days no 
more entered my mind than would the thought of going in an alley, 
on Sunday, in order to sneak in at the back door of a saloon for a 
drink, because the front door was locked, or was supposed to be locked 
if a policeman was in sight. I will also relate the comments of others 
who observed my religious practices. After I had been about fifteen 



XX 



months in the one neighborhood in Kansas City, two Catholic Sisters, 
who taught school in that neighborhood, came into the store one 
morning when my sister waited on them. They must have noticed a 
family resemblance between my sister and myself and asked her if she 
were my sister. On being told, yes, they said to her that she "ought 
to feel proud of such a model young man being her brother, who 
goes to church and to the Sacraments so regularly." I was not in the 
store at the time, but when I came in my sister said she had a compli- 
ment for me, and told me of the incident. At another time a priest, 
who for years had a good opportunity to observe me, told my brother 
that he thought "John was too good a Catholic ever to lose his faith." 
This was said by the priest when my brother told him I had given up 
Christian Science and was practicing the Catholic religion again, in 
answer to the priest's question whether I still clung to Christian 
Science since I came home. My brother told me of this when he 
came here to see me whilst I was bedfast. For a few months before I 
came home I had been infected more or less with Christian Science, 
but not enough so it could claim me as an adherent in the sense of 
believing in its tenets so as to subscribe to them. Another incident 
I will relate, whether it will add any strength or not to my rejjutation 
as a "practical" Catholic, matters not much, and that is this: a friend 
told me that a lady told her that "she thought it was so nice in me for 
going to church so regularly with my wife." The fact is I was not 
married, but went to church with my sister. It may be seen, then, 
from this incident that even strangers to me noticed my regular attend- 
ance at church. So much, then, for the establishing of my reputation 
as a "practical" Catholic, up to the time I began to investigate Chris- 
tian Science for physical healing. 

The claim that is usually made by the Catholic Church, when one 
of her members leaves her, that it is because one was never more than 
a "nominal," and therefore not a "practical" Catholic, anyway, who 
tired of her yoke, is hardly applicable in my case, is it? a. f. y. 

It was the physical healing offered by Christian Science that ap- 
pealed to me, and which finally induced me to try it and investigate it 
after material remedies had failed to give me relief. Had I been 
physically well the appeal of Christian Science would have made no 
more of an impression on me than an Indian's wooden arrow would on 
one of our modern armor-plated "Gospel spreaders." I was satisfied 
with my religion at the time and was going to try Christian Science 



XXI 



only for the physical healing it ofifered, because I was told that I 
would not be obliged to give up my Church in order to be healed. I 
then believed that the Cath(>lic religion was the only saving one, and 
believed that all others were merely "human creations," (2, 2:40). It 
was after I had passed through a period of intense suffering that I was 
given a book to read, by a priest, entitled, "The Prodigal Son, or the 
Sinner's Return to God," which gave so harrowing an account or pic- 
ture of the damned in hell forever, that, after I had read it, something 
made me exclaim, inaudably of course: "That is a lie, a blasphe- 
my, a sin against God, to have such a conception of His character!" 
This started me to question the teachings of the Church on the doc- 
trine of eternal damnation, and with the doubting of this one others 
arose. That book written by a priest, was the entering wedge that 
caused me to question or doubt the teachings of the Catholic 
Church. I will in due time give quotations from it and will let 
you answer for yourself whether you think I was right or wrong 
in my estimation of the book, when I now say that it seemed to 
me so blasphemous and fabulous that I could not help to begin to 
question the teachings of the Church, of which it was a mouthpiece. 
After that, when doubts began to arise in my mind, I would exclaim, 
"O God! reveal to me the truth," instead of saying, "My God, I be- 
lieve!" as a priest advised me to say when doubts arose in my mind. 
The priest and I had had some arguments on the subject of eternal 
punishment, and on a few other doctrines of the Church, when he told 
me to say "My God, I believe!" whenever doubts about the Church's 
teachings arose in my mind, as though God could not discern the 
thoughts of man and could be lied to. 

During that controversy he also told me that I talked like a "reg- 
ular heretic." That was in the spring of 1889, and it was a more truer 
saying than he realized it to be at the time. After he left my room, 
for I was bedfast at the time, he went into an adjoining room where 
my people were and held a conversation in a low voice with them on 
the state of my mind on the subject of religion. I over heard enough 
though, to satisfy me he was somewhat disturbed over it, and my 
people were beginning to become alarmed over it also. As I was bed- 
fast at the time, and had been told by the physicians that they could 
do nothing that would help me and therefore not expecting ever to get 
off the bed again alive, and that my sojourn on this plane of existence 
might be of short duration, anyway, I decided to change my attitude 



XXll 



towards religon by submitting to its external forms and pratices 
without protest. I thought it best to do this that my people would 
have peace of mind so far as my religious sentiments were concerned. 
I have, therefore, since that day complied with all the outward obli- 
gations and observances of the Church, even though my mind and 
heart did not agree with them. I understood that they were only 
errors, idolatries and blasphemies, and that they would not hurt me 
in observing them while at the same time my course did much to ease 
the minds of my people, who have not as yet had the scales taken 
from their eyes so that they may see as I now see. In the meantime 
I prayed to God daily and asked Him to reveal to me the truth. The 
following prayer is the one in which I asked it. Even though it is 
not an "indulgenced" or an "authorized" prayer, I made free use of it, 
being my own composition, coming from the depths of a heart and 
mind that sought earnestly to know the truth, and nothing but the 
truth: 

"Dear Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ I ask that 
Thou wouldst give me wisdom and enlighten my understanding that I 
may understand and know Thee, Jesus Christ, and my true being. 
Reveal to me the truth, and lead me into the path in which I may 
please Thee, and whithersoever Thou wouldst lead me thither give me 
the strength and courage to go. O Grod, should the path that I am in 
now, which is leading me to believe differently from what I once did, 
and in error and darkness, then I ask that in the name of Jesus Christ 
Thou wouldst let my earthly existence come to an end before I should 
dd anything that would scandalize any so as to endanger their faith in 
Thee or their salvation. Dear Father, should the path however lead 
to the light and the truth then I ask that Thou wouldst quicken my 
understanding and increase my wisdom so that I may attain to the 
knowledge of the truth, and, having attained it, Thou wouldst enable 
me to proclaim it to the world." 

Has that prayer been answered in the appearance of this book, 
whose aim is to "proclaim to the world" the thoughts that came to me 
since the spring of 1899? a. f. y. I neither claim nor disclaim that it 
has. 

It was these thoughts that came to me, which I intend to give in 
this book, that caused a revolution in my opinions and beliefs. The 
reason I chose not to make known these thoughts, orally, is because 
of the weight or importance which, I believe, is attached to them. I 



XXlll 

desired to put them in black and white so there could be no question 
as to what I did or did not say or mean. 

Some have told me that they believed I was "held for a purpose," 
after I had told them of my experiences in sickness and my appar- 
ently remarkable recoveries, and who knew some of my sentiments and 
convictions. If this book ever comes before you, and you have read 
it, you can form your own opinion whether or not I was "held for a 
purpose." I make no such claim for myself. Therefore, be it as it 
may, I believe that any one who would be willing to pursue the same 
course of questioning, and praying to know the truth, that I did, would 
receive the same thoughts and suggestions which I received. I had 
put myself into a passive state so that I might receive impressions, 
and what was their source I will let you a. f . y. 

Hoping, then, that the reading of this book will bring about its 
principal object, that of Christian Unity or the Union of the Chufches, 
I submit it to your earnest and thoughtful perusal and consideration. 

May God increase your wisdom, quicken your perception and 

enlighten your understanding is my sincere wish and prayer. 

John Hunkey. 
Atchison, Kansas. In the Year 1903. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



In the preface to this book I stated that I believed it necessary to 
give a short autobiography of myself so that you may see that what I 
speak of is much the result of personal experience and observation. 

I was born, of German parents, September 20, 1862, in a log house, 
in Kansas, at a place about fifteen miles from Atchison. When about 
four years of age my parents moved to a neighborhood in Atchison 
county, Kansas, called Good Intent. Neither of my parents attended 
school after leaving the old country, therefore they had no English 
school education. I attended the covmtry district school during the 
winter seasons, up to my eighteenth year of age, when I believed I had 
an education sufficient for a common farmer, such as I expected to re- 
main. In the summer of my nineteenth year of age an incident hap- 
pened to me, however, which started me to thinking, and which finally 
dispelled my belief that I should always remain a farmer. Father and 
I hauled two loads of wheat to Atchison one day when the weather 
was very hot. After we had received the check for the wheat we 
went into a bank to have it cashed. The cool atmosphere which 
greeted us on entering the bank was so pleasant in contrast with the 
hot rays of the sun outside that I remarked to father saying, "It seems 
to me that the men in here have an easier way of making a living than 
we have by farming." Father then said to me that if I thought I 
could make a living easier at anything other than farming he would 
not interpose any objection to it. After this remark of father, when I 
worked out in the scorching sun in dirt and dust, "sweating" little 
rivulets through my complexion of dust, I began to think of that re- 
mark which father made in the bank. His words began to haunt me 
more and more, from day to day, until I made up my mind finally that 
I would try something other than farming, by which I might earn a 
livelihood, when I should attain my majority. On the strength of 
this decision I went to the district school again the following winter, 
believing that I must have a better education than I had if I wanted 
to make a living at something other than farming. When the season 
for farm work opened again I worked until the season's work was all 
done except the gathering of the corn. I then went to St. Benedict's 
College, at Atchison, for one term of five month's, going home when 



XXVI 

farm work resumed again, and worked until the "frost was on the 
pumpkin and the fodder was in the shock," I then went to a college 
in Illinois, but not liking the college, I went to St. Louis, Mo., and on 
my way there I came to the decision of attending a business college, 
which I did, After a few months' attendance at the college I was 
"graduated," especially in bank bookkeeping. Not finding a "genteel" 
or "white shirt" job at once, I found a "position" trucking freight in 
a railway freight house. While working in the freight house I had 
a standing application for a position with an express company. After 
trucking freight about six weeks I received word from the express 
company that there was an opening for me. I accepted the new posi- 
tion and worked for the company a few months, when, about ten days 
before harvest time set in, I received my regular letter from home. 
The letter stated that harvest would begin in about ten days, and that 
the yield was expected to be quite heavy. It did not say anything or 
intimate that they would like for me to come home to help them 
harvest, but I knew what difficulty there was then already of getting 
efficient help for the harvest fields, so I thought I would go home and 
help them with the- harvest. I told the express company that I wanted 
to quit in about ten days, to go home and help my people harvest, and 
asked for a pass, which was given me. 

In due time I arrived at home and went to work. For a few days 
I felt "miserable," wishing myself back again with the express com- 
pany. I, however, soon began to become somewhat accustomed again 
to the heat of the sun and to begin to feel "natural" once more on the 
farm. I worked again until the season's work was done, except the 
gathering of the corn, and would probably have remained on the farm 
had a certain romance turned out all right. 

I had had enough experience in my short stay in the city to learn 
to know that "all was not gold that glittered" which I saw under the 
forms of "genteel" or "white shirt" jobs, when it came to working, 
therefore it was a matter of some question to me whether to stay on 
the farm or go back to the city again. Right at this point, no doubt, 
it was a romance that caused a turning point in my life, for I had 
about decided to stay on the farm, when the romance entered that made 
me change my mind about remaining on the farm. 

Strange, is it not, that such a noble, tender and sweet emotion of 
mankind as the soured, dyspeptic, disappointed old cynics call a "dis- 
ease" or "calf love," and some atheists call only "the affinity of two 



XXVll 

different cells," and some college professors say is "only sexual feeling 
in men," should have played so an important a part in many great 
events of the world and in my case ! Yet such is a fact. 

In the early autumn of 1884, when I was nearly twenty-two years 
old, a Church picnic was held in the Good Intent neighborhood, which 
I attended. A young woman, an acquaintance for a number of years, 
between eighteen and twenty years of age, also attended. I had had 
for some time a strong liking, or affinity, as it is called, for her, but as 
I regarded her much my superior I never made any advances towards 
her. At this picnic, however, along towards evening, when young peo- 
ple usually believe is an auspicious time for meeting their "affinities," 
and begin to pair for the evening, I noticed that she still strolled 
about the grounds without a "steady." As she was the one I had a 
greater liking for than any other young woman I knew of at the time, 
and seeing her alone, I, in some manner, got up courage enough to 
approach her with the intention of spending the remainder of the 
evening with her. I had during the afternoon danced with her and 
with other young women a few times, and she also danced with other 
young men. Well, my company for the evening was accepted and we 
danced, strolled about the' grounds, swung together in a swing in the 
bright moonlight, etc., etc. 

You, who have had experience have, no doubt, had feelings come 
to you that are indescribable, when basking for a few hours in the 
magnetic atmosphere and the smiles of a "pretty" young woman in a 
pink dress and a blue sash. Well, such was the blissful feeling I 
reveled in which was to end in disappointment. Believing by her 
actions that my feelings were reciprocated I felt so much encouraged 
that, before we were to take leave of each other to go home with our 
respective people, both of us having come in the family vehicle, I 
asked her if I might have the pleasure to call and see her at her home. 
Like a good and true woman she frankly told me that she was at the 
time corresponding with another young man in another part of the 
country, and that she did not believe it would be proper for her to 
receive the attentions of other men under those circumstances. Well, 
I believed her, for I had heard, on my return from St. Louis, that a 
young man had been paying attentions to her, but who had moved 
away from the neighborhood, which would oblige them to correspond 
with each other if they still cared for each other, which probably they 
did, for a time at least, for she afterwards married another young man. 



XXVlll 

Her answer to my question no longer left me undecided as to 
what I would do. I had to leave the neighborhood, which meant the 
farm for I could not endure the thought of seeing her at church on 
Sundays, and meet her otherwise, and know that her affections had 
been bestowed on another. I made up my mind then to go to Chicago, 
Illinois, when the pressing farm work would be done. Accordingly, 
then, I left for that city in the autumn of 1884, but with no light 
heart by any means. Being the year of a presidential campaign, and 
with the new sights and new environments of a large city I managed 
partly to blot out her image from my mind, for there is no doubt a 
great deal of truth in the saying, "out of sight out of mind," and "a 
short absence quickens love" — for some other girl or fellow. 

After doing odd jobs for a time I got a permanent position with 
an express company. Believing that my "vocation" was for some- 
thing different than working for others all the remainder of my life, I 
quit the express business after a three years' trial of it in Chicago. 
There was one feature, especially, about the express business that I 
did not like, and that was more or less Sunday work, which is abso- 
lutely necessary in that business. I saw that from the agent down to 
the porter all had to work more or less on Sunday, and this I did not 
fancy even though I should one day have advanced to the position of 
an agent or some other high and lucrative position in the express bus- 
iness. 

In consequence of that I left Chicago May 1, 1888, to seek my 
fortune — which has turned out rather a misfortune, in one sense of 
the word — in Kansas City, Missoui. After a short visit home, I went 
to that city, and not finding anything to do quick enough to suit me 
I had inserted in a daily paper, now defunct, an advertisement as fol- 
lows: "Position wanted by a young man, who speaks English and 
German, in a place where I can learn a business, with the privilege of 
investing later." It was the last eight words of this advertisement, 
in particular, which attracted the attention of a man who wanted to 
retire from business. He had become well advanced in years, and 
having a competency to live on, he answered my advertisement. I 
called to see him and made arrangements to begin work for him on the 
following Monday. I worked for him not quite eleven months when 
he made a deal for his stock. The goods were packed and shipped 
away, leaving vacant the store with the shelving and counters. 

During the time I worked for this gentleman I was put through 



XXIX 



quite a schooling for business. I had not been there a week when he 
took me along with him when he went to look at a line of samples of 
goods, of traveling ^eu, and of the different wholesale merchants of 
the citJ^ In that way I became acquainted with business men and 
with the price of their goods. Being a clerk I had to wait on custo- 
mers also, and in that way I also learned how to. sell goods, so when, 
the store was to be vacated I made arrangements to occupy it. Thirty 
days after the doors had been closed to the old business I opened them 
to the new, or mine. Knowing about what the trade demanded in 
that neighborhood I had bought accordingly, and the business was, 
therefore, a success from the beginning. 

After having been in business about two years, and believing I 
saw my way clear to the possible supporting of a wife and family, — 
for I did not want to assume the responsibility of supporting a family 
without seeing my way clear to do so, that I would not afterwards 
probably have to go and live with the "wife's folks," of which I believe 
a few cases could be found if one tried it with a search warrant, — I 
began to think that "it is not good for man to be alone," and began to 
look about for a "helpmeet." As my old flames were all married I 
began to look for another. It did not take long until I met one who 
came up to my ideal of a woman, and for a time believed she was my 
"affinity." I met her at a school entertainment, of Catholic sisters, 
In due time I called to see her at her home, and the first place we 
went to together was to church on a Sunday evening. After f his we 
went to a park one Sunday afternoon and to a few plays at the theatre. 
Everything seemed to be going along smoothly up to the time I left 
her one Sunday night. The next Sunday after church, however, 
instead of greeting me with her accustomed smile and handshake of 
previous Sundays, when we would then walk away together from 
church, she passed right by me without even looking at me. Such a 
sudden change in her mode of treating me almost paralyzed me in my 
feelings. As I could not imagine what might have happened during 
the week to cause so sudden and unexpected a change in her treat- 
ment of me, I did not wait until the time for the accustomed Sunday 
evening call, but called in the afternoon to learn, if possible what was 
the matter. I called at her home, about three o'clock, to see her. 
Her sister appeared at the call of the ring of the door bell, and I asked 
her if her sister was at home. When she told me she was, I asked if 
I might see her. She said yes, and ushered me into the parlor, telling 



XXX 

me she would announce my call to her sister. When she came into 
the parlor we had a talk about the matter, but I could tell by her ac- 
tions and conversation that something was not just right, and what it 
was I did not succeed in finding out. That there was no rival in the 
case of that I was satisfied, and that such was the case was proven by 
the fact that she did not marry for a number of years after that. All 
I could make out was that our pleasant relationship was to be broken 
abruptly and remain so — at least so it appeared to me. I left soon and 
then it began earnestly to dawn on my mind what a loss I had sus- 
tained. It is only those who have been disappointed in the most tender, 
sweet and noblest of emotions who can form any idea what this loss 
meant to me. 

Were it not that this incident must be interwoven, subsequently 
in this book, in order to disprove the teachings of theology that God 
sends or wills us misfortunes of various kinds, and otherwise, I would 
never breathe it to any one that I had suffered shipwreck in that 
which is the most "serious and solemn" (3:9) in human experience. 
The loss seemed an unendurable one and I did the best I could in 
trying to forget it. 

As I was in business I could not readily dispose of it so I could 
leave the city for a change of scene and environment, and being a 
total abstainer I could not descend to the degrading thought of 
drowning my grief in the intoxicating cup, so I did the best I could 
under the circumstances, and that was to call on some friends liv- 
ing in the suburbs of the city, to spend an evening with them, for 
they were a jolly set of people, which I believed would have a ten- 
dency to divert my mind from the load of grief which was so heavily 
bearing me down. Accordingly, I went out to see my friends the 
Wednesday evening following that fateful Sunday, and when I arrived 
at their home they were playing croquet, the days being long at the 
time, it being about the beginning of June. I joined in the game 
and we played till we could no longer see the arches. As we were 
going to go into the house we heard the report of a gun shot back 
of the house where there was a garden. Some one then said, "Let 
us go to see if the coachman killed the rabbit he shot at." When 
we got there the coachman said that he had missed the rabbit. Then 
some one said, "Give John the gun, he ought to be a good shot, 
having been raised on the farm." Well, the gun was given me and 
the direction pointed out to me in which the rabbit had gone, which 



XXXI 

led to a patch of knee high oats. Thoughtlessly I went into the 
patch about twenty-five steps, and not seeing any trace of the rabbit I 
retraced my steps. When I had got out of the patch I discovered that I 
was wringing wet from the knees down. It had rained early in the 
day and the dew of the evening on top of it made the oats quite wet. 

After I came back out of the oats patch we went into the house 
where we talked and played and sang. I remained about an hour and 
a half in the house when I started for home. The last half hour or 
so my lower extremities began to feel somewhat cold and twitching. 
On my way home I had to ride on a cable car, going against the cool 
north wind the greater part of the distance, which was about thirty 
blocks. The speed of the open car caused a draft that seemed to chill 
me nearly all over. After I lef the car I had about seven blocks to go 
to the house. The walk being smooth and the street well lighted I 
ran the whole distance so as to get warmed up. When I got home I 
changed my damp clothing for dry ones, went to bed, and believed 
I was all right. The next morning, however, I had such an acute 
attack of rheumatism that I was unable to go to the store. This was 
in June, 1891, and I have not had one day since then in which I have 
not felt more or less pain. 

The following quotation explains why I was so susceptible to an 
attack of rheumatism by a slight exposure: "While a man is suffer- 
ing with fear, despair, sorrow, or gloom, his heart beats more feebly, 
and his blood flows more languidly: his body is less nourished, his 
strength is impaired" (4:108). 

That was the condition I was in at the time, suffering with des- 
pair and sorrow and gloom, which impaired my heart action to such a 
degree that my strength of body had become so impaired as to be 
unable to ward off a chill that resulted in an acute attack of rheuma- 
tism, due to a slight exposure. 

About eighteen months after the attack of rhematism came on me 
I had about recovered from it, except a twinge of pain in my left hip, 
which would cause a slight hault in a quick movement of the limb. 
In an ordinary walk or gait it did not affect the movement of the limb, 
only when I would make a quick move then it would pain me. At the 
time that I was in this condition I had occasion to get aboard a street 
car, and knowing of this twinge of pain which would be felt by mak- 
ing a quick move, such as would be required to get aboard a fast 
moving cable car, I was afraid to risk jumping on while the car was 



XXXll 



going at full speed, so I gave the gripman a signal to come to a stop. 
He paid no attention to it, however, — and he had an empty train, too, 
at the time — and went by without even slacking the speed of the train. 
Being in January, I did not want to wait in the raw weather for the 
next car, as they were then about fifteen minutes apart on that line, I 
made the attempt to jump on as the car was running past me at full 
speed. Just as I feared, the pain in my left hip interfered enough 
to prevent me from making the quick move which was necessary in 
order to jump on top of the foot-board of the car, that I struck just 
underneath it with my foot. Having now missed my footing and hav- 
ing a hold of the railings of the car, I was drawn sideways a few steps 
and thrown down with such force that I experienced the feelings 
called "seeing stars" with my eyes closed, due to the sudden shock of 
intense pain in the region of what is called the "small of the back." 

This pain in the "small of the back" was an indicator that was to 
inform me that my spine had been injured, but I did not know its 
meaning at the time. By the time the next car came along I had so 
much recovered from the shock of pain that I felt about all right 
again. Even if there was still a slight pain in the "small of the 
back," it was so overshadowed by a pain higher up the spine, in the 
region of the liver, a pain which became quite pronounced a few days 
after that attack of acute rheumatism, that I did not notice the pain 
in the "small of my back." Not knowing at the time that my spine 
had been injured, impairing its strength, I kept up my ordinary work 
as usual until I finally began to grow weaker, my back getting a "kink" 
in it, as a Christian Science sympathizer called it, ending with a com- 
plete breakdown on February 15, 1898. Since that date I have not 
been able to work, and have done no work except gathering material 
for this book. I still had a business, conducted . by my brother, and 
realizing, finally, that I would never be able to attend to it I sold the 
stock at a sacrifice, January 17, 1902. 

The reason I have gone into so many details in the aflPairs of my 
life, which as only an autobiography would be of no interest to the 
reader, and at the best only dry reading, is because they will be inter- 
woven with some of the subjects treated in this book. 

On March 16, 1898, I came here to Atchison to stay with my 
people, and have since that time made it my home. The first two 
years or so after coming home, here in Atchison, I was bed-fast most 
of the time, and at times had such intense pains that I had to be given 



XXXlll 



daily hypodermic injections in my hips for two months to somewhat 
ease the pains, which were so great that for six months I could not 
be moved enough to have the bed sheets under me changed, lying on 
them that long without a change. After I had recovered enough to 
be able to be helped out of bed the discovery was made that my hip- 
joints were both perfectly stiff, and they have been so to this day. 
Whether it was due to the hypodermic injections, as some believe, or 
whether it was due to the law of inaction, not having moved my hip- 
. joints for about six months, or to both, or to the injured spine, that 
was the cause of the joints becoming stiff I do not know. 

And during this time I have had experiences which caused me 
to undergo a complete revolution or change in many beliefs and 
opinions which I held formerly, and which will be given throughout 
this book. I hope, then, that the subjects which I intend to discuss 
and analyze will be interesting enough to you to induce you to read 
through this book. 

I believe this is all I need say here about myself, otherwise there 
might be too much repetition if I should go still more into details 
which I will have to bring out anyway in the course of the book. 
With this much said, then, we are now ready to begin with the book 
proper, whose aim is to bring about Christian Unity, or the Union of 
the Churches. 

Should I succeed in accomplishing my object, then, it may possi- 
bly be said, yet, that my sojourn on this plane of existence was not 
altogether without some good after all, even though I should always 
remain unpossessed of the objects sought and striven for in my youth- 
ful health, desires and ambitions. 



CHAPTER I. 



As stated in the preface that the principal object of this book 
is to bring about Christian unity or the union of the churches 
that does not make me unmindful of the fact that others have made 
futile attempts at the same. I realize that it is not an easy matter to 
bring together, on a common platform of beliefs, the two great relig- 
ious bodies whose beliefs now are almost diametrically opposed to 
each other, in many instances, such as that of the Catholic Church 
and that of the Protestant Church. To bring these two great bodies 
of believers together into one church is not an easy task, yet I believe 
it possible and will, therefore, do all that I am capable of doing to 
bring about such a consummation. I know that the Catholic Church 
will never embrace Protestantism as it is, nor Protestantism Catholi- 
cism as it is. Both bodies believe that they are right, and that the 
other is wrong. To bring together two such opposing bodies can only 
be done by applying the test of reason, understanding and common 
sense, to their teachings, doctrines and dogmas. If the foundation 
can be undermined then the superstructure must collapse as a conse- 
quence. And this is what I will attempt to do, to strike at the 
fundamental principles first, and if there is then space left, at some of 
their jjractices which are inconsistent with their teachings or pro- 
fessions. As the two great religious bodies have some doctrines that 
are common to both, and are regarded as essentials, if I therefore 
attack and analyze them as found in the teachings of the Catholic 
Church, the religion I am most schooled in, it will concern the 
Protestant Church as well. In that case they will have to unite in 
order to fight a common enemy, just as the Pharisees and Sadducees 
united in order to condemn and remove from their midst their common 
enemy, Jesus Christ, who taught principles that were in conflict with 
the teachings and practices of the established church of the Jews. 
In my efforts, however, I hope not only to bring together in one 
church, the Catholics and the separated brethren, but also to make 
religion so attractive that it will appeal to the unbelievers, so that 
they will also join in the fellowship of the one church. 

I will try to reverse the conditions as they exist in this country 
to-day, so that it may be said that only about one-third of its popula- 



tion is not affiliated with the church, instead of as now where but 
about one-third of its jjopulation is affiliated with the churches. 

This is rather a roseate view to have in mind you will probably 
say, yet I believe it possible, if words have any meaning, and the 
intellect and the reason which were given us by the Creator to be used 
and not to be stultified and to be thrown under the feet of blind sub- 
missive faith, are used. " Therefore the true Christian throivs his intel- 
lect under the feet of faith. 5:409. With complete submission of my 
under Stan ding ^ I ivill faithfully folloto the doctrines and practices of 
this church., and vnll never separate myselffroni it. A Catholic I vnll 
live and, die.'''' 6:968. This last quotation is a part of a profession of 
Faith made on the day of first Communion just before receiving it. If 
the reason, the intellect or understanding, and faith are gifts of God 
why have we not as much right then to use and exercise the one 'as 
well as the other? And if I believe a thing because I understsnd it, 
is it not safter to do so than to believe it on the strength of faith only? 
The understanding is certainly a safer faculty to rely on than is the 
.gift of faith. To prove this I will give an illustration. Supposing 
one does not understand mathematics, and a person says to one that 
two miles sqviare, and two square miles are the same in area, and to 
prove this he draws a square on paper, representing a mile each way, 
saying, now that is one mile this way and one mile that way, which 
makes it either a mile square or a square mile, does it not? The un- 
tutored in mathematics will say, yes, that is so. Well, then, says the 
illustrator, two miles square, or two square miles is just twice one 
mile square, or one square mile. The person not understanding 
mathematics takes it for granted, on the strength of faith, that two 
miles square and two square miles are the same in area, because it has 
teen jDroven, by an illustration, that one mile square and one sqiiare 
mile is the same in area, and that, therefore, two nnles square or 
two square miles must be the same in area, being just twice one 
mile square or one square mile. You who understand mathematics 
know, however, that there is quite a difference in area between two 
miles square and two sqviare miles. 

It may be seen, then, from this illustration, that where the under- 
standing can be employed it is a more reliable faculty and safer to be 
depended on than mere faith. Yet a priest once told me that it was 
better to believe a doctrine on the strength of faith than by under- 
standing it. Well, it was because I began trying to understand things' 



that articles of faith, taught as trviths, turned out to be errors, idola- 
tries and blasphemies. In this so-called progressive age the cry is 
that we are thinkers, and that therefore we must have things that 
appeal to the reason and intellect before they will or can be accej^ted. 

Now, this is just the method I intend to follow in this book, to 
appeal to your reason and intellect or understanding. And as the 
Catholic Church says that it will use the arms of the intellect 
(l:Mar. 1902) in its warfare against infidelity, so likewise will I use 
them in my warfare against eryor, blindness, idolatry and blasphemy. 
As already stated,' I am most schooled in the Catholic religion, and as 
it believes it teaches only truths, I will begin by quoting from a book, 
which is a mouthpiece of its teachings, and which was the entering 
wedge that caused me to question the Catholic Church as a teacher of 
truths. 

The book I will quote from, and of which I have already made 
mention, is entitled, ''Prodigal Son, or the Sinner's Return to GocW"^ 
written by Michael Muller, priest of the Congregation of the Most 
Holy Redeemer. New York. Sixth Edition, 1888. It was given me to 
read by a jjriest when I was bed-ridden. No doubt the reason the 
priest gave it to me was because he had heard that I had been inves- 
tigating Christian Science, and jorobably thought I might have become 
infected some with its teachings, therefore, that by giving me this 
book to read it would wean me from Christian Science, and that there 
would then be no question about my full and unreserved submission 
to the only saving faith. Instead of making me stronger and firmer in 
my faith in the Catholic religion the reading of the book caused me 
to weaken in my faith. It seemed to be an underlying principle of 
the mind that when anything is presented to it for accej)tance in too 
an exaggerated a form, it instinctively revolts and rejects it instead of 
accepting it, and this was the case with me when I read the book. 
The following made me rebel when I read it : " If we were to see a 
good and holy man, renowned for his wisdom, fcjr his justice, who loved 
his children with the most tender affection, cast some of his beloved 
children into a fiery furnace, into a prison of frightful torment, and 
then sutfer them to linger on in the most excruciating torments, in the 
agony of despair, and never to take jnty upon them, relieve them, to 
deliver them' from their i)lace of suffering, what should we think or 
say ? How enormous must be the crime which could deserve such a 
punishment ! But this just, wise, and loving Father is God. He 



loved the angels with unspeakable love, and yet, for one mortal sin, 
He cast them into hell, to biTm there for all eternity." 7:73. 

When I had read that, something made me exclaim : That is a 
lie, a sin, a blasphemy, to have such a conception of Grod's character, 
to believe that for one sin He summarily cast the angels into heU to 
burn for all eternity, not even ofPering them a chance for repentance. 
But this is not all the book contained which caused me to question 
the teachings of the Catholic church on the doctrine of eternal damna- 
tion. Here is some more of it. In the chapter on the "Hell of the 
Body^'''' the following may be found : "The hearing is continually 
tormented. * * * There the damned are heard roaring like lions, 
hissing like serpants, howling like dogs. There are heard the gnash- 
ing of teeth and the fearful blasphemies of the devils, and, above all, 
the roaring of the thunders of God's anger, which shakes hell to its 
foundation. There is in hell a sound like the noise of many waters. 
It is as if all the rivers and oceans of the world were pouring them- 
selves with a great splash down on the floor of the dismal abode. Is it 
really thesound of waters ? It is. Are the rivers and oceans of the 
earth pouring themselves into hell ? No ; it is the sound of oceans of 
tears running down from the eyes of the damned. And those tears 
run eternally. They cry because the sulphurous smoke torments their 
eyes ; they cry because they are in darkness ; they cry because they 
have lost the beautiful heaven, and are shut out from the face of God; 
they cry because there is no hope of redemption for them, * * * 
But what is the smell of death in hell ? St, Bonaventure says that if 
one single body was taken out of hell and laid on the earth, in that 
same moment every living creature on the earth would sicken and die. 
Such is the smell of death from one body in hell ; what then will be 
the smell of death from countless millions of bodies laid in hell like 
sheep ? * * * St. Basil assures us that in hell there will be worms 
without number, eating the flesh, and the bites will be unbearable. 
St. Teresa tells us that the Lord one day showed to her the frightful 
place of hell. She says that she found the entrance filled with venom- 
ous insects. The bite or pricking of one insect on the earth sometimes 
keeps a person awake and torments him for hours. What will be his 
suffering in hell, when millions of them make their dwelling-place in 
the mouth, the ears, the eyes, and creep all over the body, and sting it 
with their deadly stings through all eternity. There will be no escape 
from them where it is not allowed to stir hand or foot. Above all the 



feelings of the damned will be tormented by fire — by a fire so scorch- 
ing, so hot and intense, that a mountain of bronze thrown into it 
would melt in an instant. * * * a fire of which our fire on earth is 
only a picture fire — ^a fire which is sad and sombre, serving only to 
make visible such objects as can torment the sight. * * * All is 
thick, black, heavy, aching darkness, which is made worse by the 
smoke of hell. Stop up the chimney when the fire is burning, and in 
half an hour the room will be full of smoke. The great fires of hell 
have been smoking now for nearly six thousand years ; they will go 
on smoking for ever. There is no chimney to take this smoke off ; 
there is no wind to blow it away. Great, black, sulphurous clouds 
rise up every moment from the dark fires, till the roof of hell stops 
them, and drives them back again. * * * Hell is a house made of 
fire. The roof and the walls are red-hot ; the floor is like a sheet of 
red-hot iron. Torrents of fire and brimstone are constantly raining 
down. Floods of fire roll themselves through hell like the waves of 
the sea. The wicked are sunk down and buried in that fiery sea of 
destruction and perdition. Every one of them is lying fastened as it 
were in a coffin, not made of wood, but of solid fire. There the repro- 
bate lies, and will lie for ever. It burnes him from beneath ; the 
sides of it scorch him ; the heavy burning lid on the top presses down 
close upon him ; the horrible heat within chokes him. He pants for 
breath ; he cannot breathe ; he cannot bear it. He gets furious. He 
gathers up his knees and lavishes out his hands against the top) of the 
coffin to burst it open. His hands and knees are fearfully burned by 
the red-hot lid. He tries with all his strength to burst open the coffin, 
but he cannot succeed. * * * He gives it up and sinks down again, 
to once more feel the horrible choking. Again he tries, again sinks 
down, and so the struggle goes on for ever. But not only are the 
damned surrounded by fire and enclosed in it as within a coffin : they 
are also thoroughly penetrated with the fire of hell. All the body is 
salted with fire. The fire burns through every bone and every muscle. 
Every nei-ve is trembling and quivering with the sharp flame." 7: 
245-249. 

After continuing in this manner of picturing hell, the book gives 
the first reason why one will endure all that is mentioned here and 
more yet, which will be given later, and that is for failing to go to 
confession. "See, then, careless Catholic, trembling slave of human 
respect ! you who have stayed away for years from confession because 



6 

forsooth, you had no time ;' because, of course, it was not fashionable' 
to go to confession^-none but the poor, low Catholics, the low Dutch 
and Irish, as you call them, go to confession — see here is the end of 
your indiiference, hei-e is the end of your false pride, of your fashion- 
able neglect, here is the end of all — fire, living, torturing, devouring 
fire!" 7:260. 

My ! what a lot of Protestants there must be in hell, if the princi- 
pal reason for being in hell is because one did not go to confession 
to a j)riest. After scoring parents for neglecting to send their child- 
ren to Catholic schools, etc., etc., it asks the question whether all that 
has been said about the sufferings of the damned in hell are fables or 
gospel truths. "Are these things fables, or are they gospel truths ? 
They cannot be denied ; Jesus Christ has taught them ; faith teaches 
them ; the scriptures and theologians attest them. What folly, then, 
to purchase by a momentary pleasure everlasting torment ! " 7:251. 

I will now give a few more quotations, on the sufferings of the 
damned, and then I will proceed to analyze the doctrine of eternal 
damnation, from the standpoint of reason and human analogy. In 
the chapter on the " Hell of the Soul," the following may be found : 
"It would seem that the greatest torment of hell is the intelligent fire 
which devours the unhapi)y reprobates ; but such is not the case. 
The most excruciating torment of all, the niost intolei'able for the 
human soul, is to be deprived of seeing Grod, with the thought of be- 
ing deprived of him for ever. This is what is called the pain of loss. 
And to understand in some measure what this pain of loss is, we must 
remember that we have been created to be for ever hapjoy. This love, 
this yearning for haj)piness, which every one feels in his heart, will 
never be destroyed, not even in hell. * * * The famished soul 
yearns to possess God, the centre of her happiness, but all her efforts 
are fruitless ; she is cast otf from Grod ; she is chained for ever. * * * 
Were Grod to send an angel from heaven to announce to the damned 
that, after as many millions of years as there are grains of sand on the 
shores of the sea, their torments would come to an end, how great 
would be their happiness. * * * But this happiness shall never be 
theirs. * * * Fain would the damned annihilate themselves, and 
destroy for ever their unhappy existence, but in vain. They can only 
increase, they can never end, their torments. In their agony they cry 
aloud : ' O Grod of justice, Grod of vengeance ! come, destroy me ; 



annihilate tliis being Thou hast given me.' But God is deaf to their 
cries.'" 7:254:-266. 

Will any intelligent and reasonable person condemn me for re- 
senting such a calumny and slander against God? and because I' 
have undertaken to vindicate His character of such a degrading con- 
ception as one must draw from this picturing of the sufferings of the 
damned in hell forever as given in this book under review? If a 
human father should attempt to mete out to any of his children only 
a sixtb part of the suffering — in that of the sense of feeling only — not 
taking into consideration the other senses, and the yearning for a lost 
object of affection, as is here stated God will inflict on some of His 
creatures on their sense of feeling alone, the "Humane Society" would 
step in and stay the hand of such an unreasonable, unmerciful, unre- 
lenting, vindictive human brute, would it not? Well, then, will you 
say that because God is omnipotent, and His hand cannot be stayed, 
He will descend to the level of a human brute whose hand must be 
stayefl by the "Humane Society" or the "Bands of Mercy"' to prevent 
him from inflicting unreasonable, vindictive and unrelenting punish- 
ment on man or animal? And what is everlasting punishment but 
vindictive, revengefiil and unreasonable? It is not even corrective of 
refcrmatory, as punishment inflicted on earth may be. 

If we cannot have a conception of God's character that is above 
thf.t of His normal creatures, then let us at least concede a conception 
of His character that is as noble and reasonable as that of the mem- 
bers of the "Humane Society" or of the "Bands of Mercy."' Is this 
asking too much for God's character to concede to him such a char- 
acter? Is it asking too much to have such a noble and reasonable 
oonception of His character as to believe that He will destroy or 
annihilate the consciousness of those of His creatures who are so 
utterly depraved as to be beyond all hope of a final redemption, than 
to believe that he will be "deaf to their cries" for annihilation, should 
they be so depraved as to be beyond all hope of a final redemption? 
When I think of the suff'erings I have endured only in the one sense 
of feeling, and that only a few years, and then with intervals of relief, 
it makes me shudder to think of what everlasting punishment of the 
five senses would mean in comparison with it. It is utterly too un- 
reasonable to think God could be capable of inflicting such a punish- 
ment on any of His creatures. I, for one, can no longer believe it 
when I think of my few years of suft'ering. It was probably because 



8 

of the vivid impression on my mind of the sufferings I had just 
passed through, when this book in question was given me, that the 
reading of it made me revolt at the awful picture it gave of the suffer- 
ings of the damned in hell forever. Not only do I know what it 
would mean to suffer only in the senses of the body forever, but also 
know what it would mean to yearn forever for an object one could 
never possess. It would indeed be "the most excruciating torment of 
all, the most intolerable for the human soul" (7:254) to be deprived 
forever from possessing that which "the famished soul yearns to pos- 
sess." 7:256. I know what this would mean from the experience 
I have had in my disappointment in love. 

That thought alone, of unsatisfied yearning forever for the object 
for which the soul yearns, and never be able to possess, without any 
other suffering, would seem to me, indeed, to be a heart chilling and . 
blood freezing one. 

To say, then, that God will eternally cause a yearning in the soul 
of the damned to possess Him, so that it will cry out "O God ! the 
longing of my soul," and make it forever imjDossible for the soiil to 
possess Him, is too monstrously blasphemous and unreasonable for 
me to believe of God. It would be an act of mercy if God would 
annihilate those who are so depraved as to be beyond any hope ot" a 
final redemiDtion, rather than let them linger in eternal suffering. But 
as the book says, this is a vain hope for the damned that they will be 
annihilated, for "God is deaf to their cries." 2 — 7:266. The Bible 
says "His mercy endureth fox'ever," (Ps. 106) but were eternal pun- 
ishment a fact this passage would be of no force, and therefore i 
would be a lie. But eternal suffering is not a fact, even if God has 
no more mercy than has the noblest and most merciful of His crea- 
tures, and this you must admit that the source must be at least as high 
as is the stream. 

Read what the priest says of God's mercy. "God's mercy is an 
ocean which has no depth, and whose bounds we cannot behold.* * * 
He does not expect us to be more merciful than He Himself is." 
7:293-294. 

Would not I, or any one else, who no longer believe in the unrea- 
sonable, pitiless and vindictive doctrine of eternal iDunishment, aj^pear 
to have more mercy than God if we believe in punishment only of 
"measure for measure?" The greatest wrong that was ever committed 
against me I could not at the most consent to have God punish that 



9 

person, who committed the wrong, beyond the measure of suffering it 
had caused me directly and indirectly. For fear that you may think 
I have in mind the person of that eventful Sunday, I must make a 
digression here to asssure you that it is not she, for I believe to this 
day that if no one had influenced her to do as she did at that time, I 
would never have had such a cup of bitter suffering to drink as I 
have drunk since that eventful Sunday. She was at the time nearing 
her eighteenth birthday, making her young and inexioerienced yet, 
besides she told me at one time, when everything seemed promising, 
that I was the first and only one she ever kept company with, making 
it therefore impossible for her to know or realize what it would mean 
to me for her to treat me as she did finally. Therefore free your mind 
of the thought that I may have any ill feeling towards her, and as 
she is married this cannot be construed to mean that I still entertain 
any hopes so far as she is concerned. 

Now, the ones who influenced her to treat me the way she did 
finally, and which has caused me so much suffering, besides what it 
has caused others indirectly, through the ties of the flesh, the ties 
which bind us together so that we partake of the joys and sufferings 
of our own, certainly committed one of the greatest wrongs against me 
that it was possible to commit. And if the teachings of the Catholic 
Church were true, that apostates of that church will be damned eter- 
nally, then it would, indeed, be the greatest of wrongs that could have 
been committed against me. For I feel satisfied that if I had never 
been physically afflicted as I was, through the indirect cause of that 
wrong, I would to-day be as good and firm a Catholic as I was up to 
the time I was willing to listen to the appeals of Christian Science for 
physical healing, and one would therefore have had a show of getting 
to heaven one day, while now I am doomed to eternal hell-fire, ever- 
lasting punishment, unending torments, ceaseless woe, agony and 
despair, if the teachings of the Catholic Church were true. It looks 
as though this awful picture does not frighten me, does it, because I 
willingly and deliberately choose to be an aijostate of the Catholic 
Church? 

Gretting back again to the subject of Grod's mercy ; I ask, would I 
be just, merciful, and compassionate if I could or would consent to 
the infliction of a measure of iDunishment on this person, who was the 
indirect cause of my misfortunes, beyond tUe measure of suffering 
that I have endured or will yet endure on this plane of existence, even 



10 

though the question of forgiveness had to be ruled out altogether ? 
Well, then, if you think I would not be just, merciful, and compas- 
sionate if I gave consent to the infliction of a measure of punishment 
beyond the measure of suffering I must endure, then how can it be 
said that God is just, merciful, and compassionate if He can inflict a 
measure of punishment that is everlasting ? Oh, but it will be said 
that the offense was committed against God therefore it deserves such 
a measure of punishment as everlasting punishment. True, it was 
committed against God, but if " His mercy endureth for ever," and 
the damned cry out , " O God of justice ! come destroy me ; annihi- 
late this being Thou hast given me," (7:266) would He be merciful 
if He "is deaf to their cries" then ? Either give the word mercy its 
true meaning or else rule it out as an attribute of God, if He can be 
" deaf to their cries " at any time in the hereafter. 

Supposing a father would take a child of his, who for some offense 
had ilicurred its father's dis^jleasure, would strip it naked ; bind its 
hands and feet ; place it on a bed of sharp thorns and red-hot coals ; 
fastened the child down with stakes ; placed a vessel, filled with the 
most nauseating odors, under its nose ; filled its ears, eyes, and mouth 
with biting insects ; covered its body with venomous vijiers ; scraped 
its body with a red-hot iron, and writhing in pain and agony it would 
cry out, " O jDapa, O papa, have pity, have mercy on me," and he 
would be "deaf to its cries," what would be your opinion of a father 
who did this V Could it be any different from that of a God who 
would punish any of His creatures in the manner described in the 
book from which I have quoted ? Yet this suffering inflicted by the 
human father is only as i^ainted suffering comjoared with that which 
God will inflict in hell not only for a few hours, or ten years, or a 
a thousand years, or a million years, or a thousand million times a 
thousand million years, but for ever, eternally, never ending ! Think 
of what that means — eternity ! Close the book, then close your eyes 
and reflect for a few moments what a never ending suffering would 
mean. It is enough to make one shudder to think of it. Does not 
the doctrine of eternal damnation or suffering appear clearly and con- 
vincingly to you now as most unreasonable, reprehensible, and 
blasphemous ? Do you now wonder at all because Mr. IngersoU 
would never deliver a lecture without attacking this doctrine ? "I 
have concluded that I will never deliver a lecture in which I will not 
attack the doctrine of eternal joain." 

Oh. but you will say. that I should not take so seriously what the 



11 

priest said about the suffering of the damned in hell. In that case I' 
ask, where shall one draw the line and separate the truth from fable, 
in what the church and the priest says, if the sayings of the priest, as' 
found in his book, are not the literal truth ? Or is the book intended 
only for " presumptuous," ignorant, stupid " hayseeds," or " clod-hop-' 
i:)ers," who are fit only to live in a bleeding, drouth-stricken, grass- 
hopper-ridden, cyclone and blizzard swept, prohibition cursed, woman's 
rights afflicted, mortgage plastered, joint infested, chigger covered, 
flood devasted, and crank and freak producing state, because the booik 
got into that state and it was given me by mistake, because I happened 
to be in the state at the time it was passed around Y If you think I 
should not have taken so seriously what one i^riest said about the suf- 
ferings of the damned in hell, I will quote from other authors and let 
you a. f . y. whether or not there is any great difference after all be- 
tween the views, of the sufferings of the damned, of the different 
writers. In a little book entitled "Hell Opened to Christians," by F. 
Pinamonti, S. J., the following may be found : . "Here, though the 
place itself is wide enough, the damned will not even have that relief, 
which either a jooor prisoner has in walking between four walls, or the 
sick man in turning himself in bed, because here they shall be bound 
np like a faggot, and heaped upon one another like unfortunate vic- 
tims ; and this by reason of the great numbers of the damned, to whom 
this great pit will become narrow and straight ; as also because the 
fire itself will be to them like chains and fetters. * * * Besides, 
God will not concur with anything that can give them any manner of 
relief : making no more account of them, than if they had never been 
in the world : and therefore forgotten by His mercy. [According to 
this "His mercy endureth for ever," must be a lie in the Bible.] * * * 
The damned will be so weak, as not to be able even to remove from 
the eye a worm that is gnawing it. * * * Consider, that this prison 
will not only be extremely straight, but also extremely dark. It is 
true there will be fire, but deprived of light ; yet so that the eyes 
shall suffer with the sight of most horrible appearances, and yet be 
debarred of the comfort which in the midst of all their terror, the 
lightning themselves might cause in the frightfulest tempests. * * * 
One night alone has sometimes made a poor prisoner turn quite gray. 
What effect, then, must that night, which shall never see day, cause in 
those unfortunate creatures v * * * Consider how much the mis- 
fortunes of this i)rison, so straight and obscure, must be heightened 



12 

by the addition of the greatest stench. Thither, as to a common 
sewer, all the filth of the earth shall run after the fire has purged it at 
the last day. The brimstone itself continually burning in such prodig- 
ious quantity, will cause a stench not to be borne. The very bodies 
of the damned will exhale so pestilential a stink, that if any one of 
them were to be placed here on earth, it would be enough, as St. Bona- 
venture observes, to cause a general infection. * * * Consider, that 
the divine justice has chosen fire as the fittest instrument to punish 
those that rebel against Grod. Even among men there never was found 
a greater torment. It is, therefore, with reason called the greatest of 
all. Nevertheless, you must not think the fire of hell is like ours. 
Happy I say, would those unfortunate souls be, if they met with no 
other fires than what can be made on earth. * * * Consider, what 
great loss a soul suffers in losing God for ever, and with him all the 
enjoyments which she might have hoped for in possessing him. * * * 
This pain, [of loss], therefore, is infinite, for if the fury of that 
devouring fire could be a thousand and a thousand times redoubled, it 
would never equal this torment." 9:15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 50, 51. 

There is much more of the same tenoi', but what I have quoted is 
there much difference in its tenor from that of the other book quoted 
from? a. f. y. 

I will now quote what non-Catholic Christians have taught and 
said about hell. As these quotations are taken from another's quota- 
tions, you will please pardon me for quoting them at second hand, 
because I did not find it convenient to consult the originals myself. 
Aiid as I do not believe Dr. Peebles would intentionally make any 
misrepresentations, I take it for granted that the quotations are not 
mutilated so as to distort their meaning, and will therefore quote them 
as found in his pamphlet entitled "Hell," issued by Peebles Publish- 
ing House, 1895. The following may be found in it: 

" The Presbyterian Church in its catechism says expressly: 'The 
punishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation 
from the comfortable jjresence of God, and most grevious torments in 
soul and body, withovit intermission, in hell-fire forever.' " * * * 
"Jeremy Taylor says : ' What shall the heat of that fire be, which 
shall be the executioner of the justice of the God of Vengeance, 
whose zeal shall be inflamed against the wicked and shall kindle the 
fire which shall eternally burn to the extremities of hell.' " * * * 
" ' The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in a storm of fire and 



13 

brimstone,' says President Edwards," 'was but a shadow of the de- 
struction of ungodly men in hell, and is no more to it than a shadow or 
picture is to the reality, or than painted fire is to real fire/. " * * * 
" The Rev. Christopher Love says: 'It is the society where you are 
tormented that makes hell-torments to be most grevious and dreadful. 
All the company you will have in hell are only devils and damned 
spirits. * * * The nostrils shall be smothered with brimstone to 
choke you.'" * * * "President Edwards again says: 'The wicked 
shall be cast into the wine-press of the wrath of Grod, where they shall 
be pressed down with wrath as grapes are pressed in a wine-press. 
God will then make appear in their misery how terrible his wrath is, 
that men and angels may know how much more dreadful the wrath of 
God is than the wrath of kings or any other creatures.' " This last 
quotation even places God's character beneath the level of that of the 
most inhuman brute, whose hands must be stayed, by the "Humane 
Society," from inflicting unreasonable punishment. "Jeremy Taylor 
increases the horrors by saying: 'Sinners shall be cast upon burning 
coals, flames and sulphur shall be their coverlets. This bed of fire 
shall not be for one night only, but for nights, days, months, years, 
ages and eternities.' " * * * " 'In the midst of hell,' says the Rev. Mr. 
Swindon,'" 'there is another hell. There the wicked shall be exposed 
to the intolerable anguish of an outraged conscience, that shall con- 
tinually prey upon them to increase their torments.' " * * * " 'When 
the damned,' "said the Calvinistic Rev. Mr. Ambrose in his sermon on 
doomsday," 'have drunken down whole draughts of brimstone one day, 
they must do the same another day. The eye shall be tormented with 
the sight of devils, the ears with the hideous yellings and outcries of 
the damned in flames, the nostrils shall be smothered, as it were, with 
brimstone; the tongue, the hand, the foot, and every part, shall fry in 
flames.' " 10:5-9. 

If the Catholic and the non-Catholic Christian will, in the face of 
what I have quoted and said about eternal punishment, still continue 
to uphold this doctrine, ought not a defense of it by them bring them 
a step nearer together to a union? But this is only one of the doc- 
trines which concerns both of them which I will attack and analyze, . 
with the view of bringing them together or making them unite for a 
common defense against my assaults. 

I will now give you a quotation to show you what is the object of 
hell. "The infernal fire, then, is an effect of the ornnipotericy of God 



14 

injured by sinners; it is a visible sign of that infinite hatred which 
the Divine Goodness bears to sin, as also an invention of His wisdom to 
recover the honor taken from Him by the wicked. * * * They will 
know that God and Hi3 saints rejoice at their pains, on account of the 
glory which redounds to the divine justice, in the condemnation of 
sinners. O what a wound must this make in the heart of these misera- 
ble creatures! To be obliged to suffer so many torments forever, and 
in the presence of their judge, and of their greatest enemies, the 
■saints; to be forced to suffer this to the increase of their felicity." 
9:33, 99. According to this the object of hell is to "recover the 
honor" taken from God by sinners, to show the "glory which re- 
dounds to the divine justice," and for the "felicity" of the saints. I 
will give you quotations now to show you how hell is a "glory 
which redounds to the divine justice." "We read that when St. Ber- 
nard died, a holy anchorite, who died at the same time, appeared to 
the Bishop of Laugres, and told him that thirty thousand men had 
died at the same moment, and that onlj' St. Bernard and himself, who 
had gone straight to heaven, and three souls who had been sent to 
purgatory, were saved out of that vast number. A man who had died 
from the violence of his contrition was afterwards restored to life by 
the prayers of a holy religious. He said that sixty thousand souls 
from all parts of the earth were jjresented with him before the Divine 
tribunal to be judged, and that only three of them were sent to purga- 
tory, and all the rest were condemned to eternal torments. A doctor 
of the University of Paris appeared, after his death, to the bishop of 
that city, and told him that he was damned. * * * He asked the 
bishop 'if there were still men in the world." 'Why?' "asked the 
bishop." 'Because,' "said he." 'during these days so many souls have 
fallen into hell that I thought there could not be man}- more remain- 
ing." "' (7:337,338.) "St. Thresa saw the souls of men flocking 
daily throiigh the doors of hell, like the showers of dry leaves which 
the wind drives about in autumn."" 11:53. 

Here, indeed, is "glory which redounds to the divine justice," 
and an " invention of His wisdom to recover the honor taken from 
him." where eight out of ninety thousand got into heaven. — -and six 
of these had to i)ass through the annex of hell, purgatory — and all the 
others in hell. If these visions of the saints were true, and as this pro- 
portion of the damned to the saved has, no doubt, been going on since 
mankind was placed on this earth, and which probably has been 



15 

exceeded before and since that time, for these sujjposed visions and visits 
to bishojis took place at the time when the Catholic church was at its 
height, although it dbes not ajopear that the church was bringing any 
very great moral influences to bear if it could claim only eight souls 
saved out of ninety thousand, and would let the souls of men flock 
"daily through the doors of hell, like the showers of dry leaves which 
the wind drives about in autumn;" and as no saint ever had recorded 
any vision about seeing the number of souls passing through the 
gates of heaven, they were probably so few that they did not like to 
mention it for fear it would not reflect very creditably on the moral 
influences of the "only saving faith." In that ease it will, indeed, be 
a "glory which redounds to the divine justice" for a handful of saints 
tb enjoy the "felicity" of seeing an ocean of damned souls in hell 
writhing in woe, despair, agony, and torment forever. Then, indeed, 
will God's wisdom be seen if he did not know how to create man and 
exercise a providence over him and design or decree things so as to 
save only eight out of ninety thousand. If a man designed a thing 
and it failed to accomplish its object (jftener than it succeeded we 
would pronounce the man unwise and a failure. Shall we say the 
same of God? No! and I tell you, even though it should influence 
your mind for me to say it, that these supposed visions of the saints 
seeing the thousaiids going into hell, to the insignificant few being 
saved, are blasphemous, superstitious, damnable, childish fables, and 
that the i^riest made a great mistake in i)utting into my hands such a 
book. Do you blame me for my resentment against the book, not 
only because it may be an insult to my God-given noble faculties of 
the reason and the intellect, but also because it is a calumny and a 
libel on God? 

According to Catholic writers, God displayed wisdom in knowing 
how to invent a hell of such pains as woiild be proportionate to the 
anger he has towards those that hate Him, but it seems He did not 
have sufficient wisdom to know how to invent ways by which more 
than eight out of ninety thousand might be saved. [Hell is "of such 
pains as the wisdom of an angry God could invent for those that hate 
him!"] 9:61. They even call on the devil, the so-called arch de- 
ceiver whose word should not be believed, to bolster uj) their doctrine 
of an eternal hell. 

"Father Surin, a learned theologian of the seventeenth century, 
relates the folhjwing curious event, which took jjlace in 1();U, at Lou- 



16 

dun, in the diocese of Poitiers. Several persons possessed of the 
devil were exorcised, and the priest who performed that difficult task 
sometimes interrogated the evil spirit on questions of great interest. 
One day he said to him : 'In the name of God, I command thee to 
•tell me what pains are sufPered in hell!' 'Alas!' answered the evil 
spirit, 'we suffer a fire which is never extinguished, an eternal curse, 
and especially a rage, a despair impossible to describe, because we can 
never see Him who made us and whom we have lost by our own 
fault.' " * * * "Such was the reply of the devil, and surely he ought 
to know what is the greatest torment in hell, he who has been the 
enemy of God and living in hell for so many ages." 7:254. 

Are we to "believe the testimony of the devil according to the fol- 
lowing view of him ? "Evil spirits, as far as Providence permits, use 
their superior cunning and power to delude, degrade, and ruin man." 
( 2:2. ) Yes, and did he not lie to Adam and Eve, according to the 
Bible record ? Yet here we are asked to believe the testimony of him 
on the doctrine of an eternal hell. Make your own comments on this. 
Another object for the preaching of an eternal hell is to frighten peo- 
ple into doing right from fear rather than doing right from principle 
or for the sake of love for God and for man. But these sermons on 
the "terrible judgment"' makes very little impression on the hearers 
nowadays if one is to judge from observations. On Sunday, Novem- 
ber 24, 1901, being the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year, the gos- 
pel for the day was Matt. 24:15-35 which speaks of the "abomination of 
desolation," the priest had a sermon on the "terrible judgment" of the 
resurrection day. It was terrifying enough to chill the blood in one's 
veins, yet there were young men and women in the rear pews of the 
church who talked and laughed, during the rest of the mass, after the 
sermon. Even during the sermon some fumbled with their prayer 
books and some slept, both men and women. As I cannot sit but 
must stand in church, so I always have to stand, leaning against the 
rear walls of the church, and in this way I can see much that goes on 
before me. Wheti I started to leave the church, after mass, I said to 
the sexton, who also had noticed the conduct of some in the church, 
that it seemed the sermon on the "terrible judgment" did not make 
any impression on some, when he said : "Yes, it seems some never 
will learn how to conduct themselves in church." 

The manner in which these conducted themselves during mass 
was a mortal sin, according to the teachings of the church, yet the 



17 

sermon on the "terrible judgment" made no impression on them. It 
appeared as though it went in one ear and out of the other. It is 
really surprising to know how many there are in the Catholic church 
who no longer firmly believe in an eternal hell. But they dare not 
say so openly because it would not be expedient for them to do so. 
When a person says that he or she "hopes it is not as bad as the 
priests would have us believe eternal punishment is" you may then 
know that the belief in it is no longer firm. 

That you may not think that I am making an untrue assertion 
when I repeat what I have already said, namely, that the doctrine of 
eternal punishment is preached more to frighten people into doing 
right because of fear than because of principle or love of God and love 
of man I will give a few quotations which will prove my assertion. 
"There is no thought more powerful to assist us in overcoming the 
greatest temptations than that of eternal torments. The greatest 
saints have often renewed the memory of these torments for their 
greater spiritual advantage." * * * St. Frances de Chantal used to 
tell her sisters in religion 'that she would fear very much for the sal- 
vation of that one among them who should lose the fear of hell.' 
7 :229, 230. "St. Chrysostom, in his homlies on the epistle to the 
Ephesians, says, we ought to thank God for hell itself, and for all the 
pains and punishments that are there, because tney are such an 
effectual bridle to our inordinate passions." 11:254. 

This is like a man, who is without principle, saying, "I am thank- 
ful for the law against capital punishment, for it is such an 'effectual 
bridle' against my inclination to murder John Doe because he did not 
treat me right in that skin game of poker," or "I am so thankful 
for the laws against stealing, for it is such an 'effectual bridle' against 
my inclination of absconding with a lot of trust funds;" or "I am so 
thankful for the laws of the age of consent, for it is such an 'effectual 
bridle' to my inclination to ruin young girls;" or "I am so thankful 
for the law against drunkenness, for it is such an 'effectual bridle' to 
my inordinats desire to go on a spree;" or, etc., etc. When one says 
one is thankful for hell and its pains, because "they are such an ef- 
fectual bridle to our inordinate passions" do you not believe such a 
one needs to be "bom again," instead of being canonized ? 

You, who are moral from principle, are you in fear and dread of 
the laws against murder, robbery, stealing, drunkenness, etc.? Hardly, 
Well, then, if you do right from a motive of principle, and not 



18 

because of fear of the laws of the land, can yon not likewise do righ t 
from a motive of principle in the things that concern morality without 
the fear or dread of an eternal hell? Oh, but it will be said that if 
the belief in an eternal hell were destroyed and it became general, it 
would be fraught with great danger to morals. Let us see whether 
such would be the case or not. I have no statistics at hand to know 
what proportion of those who believe in God, and not in an eternal hell, 
in this country hold to those who do believe in it, yet I believe it is 
qiiite large. Those who do not believe in it are the Unitarians, Uni- 
versalists. Spiritualists, Christian Scientists, Dowieites, Millenial 
Dawnists, and a few minor sects. If you know any who are members 
of any of these denominations what is your opinion of them as regards 
morals? How many more of these than of the Catholics and others 
who believe in eternal torments are in the liquor business? How 
many more are confirmed drunkards? How many more are users of 
lorofane and obscene language? How many more get into jails and 
penitentiaries? How many more run gambling houses and are fre- 
quenters of them ? How many more defile themselves with the exces- 
sive use of tobacco ? How many more have dances, and card parties, 
with "valuable j)rizes" for winners, to raise money for their churches? 
How many more are talebearers and gossipers? How many more of 
their daughters have illegitimate children? How many more are less 
square and honorable in their dealings with their fellow men? etc., etc. 
Your observation on all these points of conduct in those will tell you 
what effect on morals the general disbelief in eternal punishment 
would have. But let me tell you right here that I do not believe in 
immunity of punishment for sin. I believe that "whatever we sow 
that also shall we reap," and that the "measure we mete unto others 
.shall be meted unto vis," no matter if we do go to confession to a 
priest, or expect salvation by faith in Jesus Christ by "coming to 
Jesus." Grod governs the iTuiverse by law, and this includes the moral 
as well. Whenever one violates a moral law one will sufPer the 
measure of punishment that goes with its violation, just as one must 
suffer the measure of punishment that goes with a violation of a 
physical law. If God has power, which I do not question that He 
has did He care to exercise it, over the physical laAvs, as He is sup- 
posed to have over the moral laws, then why does he not restore 
instantly, to wholeness, a broken bone when one is hurt and cries to 
Him in intense pain to have mercy on one, instead of letting it heal 



19 

according to the laws of recovery and growth, as readily as it is 
believed He will instantly pardon one for an infraction of a moral law 
when one cries to Him for forgiveness ? Or why does He not answer 
the prayer of a wife, and others, to spare the life of the husband who 
is dying of an illness, or an injury the result of an accident, that he 
may continue to support and provide for her and her child '? Why 
does He not, in answer to j)rayers, s^are the life of the young mother, 
who is dying of an illness, that she may bring up her infant daughter 
under a mother's care and influence, and thus save the child from 
falling into the snares of evil ? Why does He not exercise provi- 
dential care over the husband, father, or brother, who are the supporters 
of others, and protect them from meeting death in accidents over 
which they have no control ? I -could go on in this manner and cover 
nearly every kind of misfortune that has befallen good, noble, and 
prayerful persons. Why is it that these things take place notwith- 
standing the fact that prayers are ofPered daily to avert them ? Where 
is God's providence in this ? There is none, and there cannot be any 
if we have a reason, free will power, and an understanding, instruments, 
with which to work out our well-being, and if the universe is governed 
by law, a proiDosition which is no longer questioned by observing and 
investigating persons. Therefore, admitting the foregoing as a fact, 
it follows as a consequence that as God governs by law, and not by 
caprice, we must suffer the inevitable penalties for an infraction of 
that law, be it physical or moral. 

What are the "thou shalt" and the "thou shalt nots" but laws 
with penalties attached for their violations ? You may see, then, that 
one who does not believe in eternal punishment, but who believes one 
will reap what one sows, and that the measure we mete unto others 
will be meted to us, and who knows and believes that there is no 
escape from this, is more likely to be a moral person than one who 
believes in eternal torment, but who believes it can be escaped by 
simply going to confession, or by expecting salvation by faith in 
Jesus Christ. Is this so or not ? a. f. y. Would this belief then, 
according as I have outlined it, be "fraught with danger to morals ? " 
Is this more conducive to morality to be taught to believe that "Here, 
(in confession) by one act of obedience and humility the proud sinner 
cancels a whole life of, iniquity and rebellion," (7:393) than is the 
belief as I hold it regarding punishment of sin ? You, who have 
never gone to confession to a priest may think it is an awful task, but 



20 

I know from experience that it is not, and here is the word of a priest 
to prove my assertion : "Certainly mortal sin deserves something 
more severe than the easy way that we find in the confessional. Con- 
fession is not a hard thing, except in our imagination. A few words 
whispered in the kindly ear of the priest, a little act of sorrow to 
Almighty God, a good strong purpose to sin no more, the words of 
absolution, and the worst leprosy the world has ever known is instantly 
and entirely healed. Was ever a physician more gentle, was ever an 
operation more quickly done?" (Five Minute Sermon, Catholic 
News, September 5, 1900.) 

Now, what kind of an efPect do you suppose the belief in the "easy 
way that we find in the confessional," in which the "worst leprosy the 
world has ever known is instantly and entirely healed" will have that 
is any less "fraught with danger to morals," than is the belief I hold 
of punishment only of "measure for measure," and not for eternity ? 

As regards the "good sti^ong purpose to sin no more," how long 
do you suppose the effects of this "purpose" are to last ? Here it is, 
"at least for a time." In answer to the question as to "Who are those 
who have reason to fear they have aroused only a natural sorrow for 
their sins," the following is the answer : Those who care little about 
knowing what true sorrow is; those who often commit grievous sins, 
and do not amend their lives; for if true sorrow for sin had been 
excited in their hearts, with the firm purpose of amendment, the grace 
of God in this sacrament [of confession] would have strengthened 
the resolution, and enabled them to avoid sin, at least for a time." 
5:45. I remember a fellow in Chicago who could hardly utter a 
sentence without using a profane word, but when he went to the 
sacraments, which he did regularly, for he was regarded as a "practi- 
cal" Catholic, he would for that day "amend his life" and refrain from 
using profane language, but beginning bright and early the following 
day he would be doing business at the old stand, and one could not 
tell whether or not he had the day before made an act of a "firm pur- 
pose of amendment." 

Let us now see what the "little act of sorrow" looks like. Part 
of it may be true, a part of it is a lie, and part of it tells God what one 
is doing and intends to do, as though he could not discern the heart 
of man. "O my God! I am heartily sorry for my sins because I 
dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell;" [This part may be 
true, but now for the lie part:] "but, most of all, because they 



21 

displease Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all love." 
[Now what one intends to do]. "And I firmly resolve, with the help 
of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, [recite a rosary, for 
instance] and to amend my life." 13:5. [At least for a time.] 
Here is a "little act" which I have made use of since I became a 
"regular heretic," and I will let you a. f . y. whether or not one who 
prays like that ought to have no salvation because one is outside of 
the Catholic church? "Dear Heavenly Father, give me repentance 
that I may be converted and be renewed in the spirit of my mind, so 
that I may do what is pleasing to Thee for Thy sake, and not because 
of fear of punishment or for the hope of reward." 

The Catholic may now ask, because I do not seem to believe the 
teachings of the Catholic church are the most conducive to morals, 
whether I believe they are of all men — "and, as the preacher correctly 
stated it, the men embrace the women," — (14:176 Vol 1) the most 
sinful of Christians? I do not say they are, but I will let you a. f. y. 
whether or not they are models of sobriety, of bodily cleanliness — 
meaning non-users, to excess, of a filthy weed, — of modesty in dress, 
of non-users of profane and obscene language, etc.? You see I am 
asking, are they models to be emulated more so than other Christians? 
It will not do to say that they are "just as good, and no worse than 
others." Others are supposed to have been taught morality by a man- 
made religion, while the Catholic church claims it is the church 
founded by Jesus Christ and the Apostles, and it ought, therefore, 
to exercise the greater influence for good morals. But does it? Let 
us see what Catholic writers say about the conduct of their members: 
"Go through the streets of any of our large cities, and see a drunkard 
staggering along and serving as a laughing-stock for the whole 
neighborhood. Go ask who it is, and to your shame some scoffing 
infidel will tell you, sneeringly , 'Oh ! it is only a drunken Catholic ! ' 
A drunken Catholic! My God! is it then for this that Thou hast 
come into the world?" 7:118. Why was it that such an answer 
was made, "Oh! it is only a drunken Catholic," if it was not because 
it is no uncommon sight to see more drunken Catholic Christian than 
drunken non-Catholic Christians? Here is a little more : "Were a 
stranger to pass through the city at the season of Lent, were he to see 
the churches so well filled, and the confessionals so well crowded 
with penitents, what a good opinion would he form of the Catholics 
here. Wherever we turn we behold eyes filled with tears, counten- 



22 

ances stamped with contition — everywhere signs of sincere devotion. 
Here truly, he would say, Jesus is honored; here He rejoices, here He 
celebrates a glorious triumph. Yes; but return here in two months, 
in two weeks even, and the penitent faces will be seen at parties, balls, 
theatres, frolics, in drinking-saloons ; at the gambling table the very 
same hands ; in families, among relatives and neighbors, the very same 
quarrels; in the stores the same false weights, the same fraud; the old 
curses and blasphemies will be heard in the streets and public places. 
This is indeed a change of scene, and this change of scene is renewed 
every Easter." 7:397. Is this the fruit of the influence of Catholic 
teaching with its doctrine of an eternal hell? How much worse than 
the above are those in their conduct who do not believe in an eternal 
hell, yet believe in Grod and in a life beyond the grave? a. f. y. 

The following item of news appeared in a daily paper of 1901 : 

"Father , of St. church, declined to administer 

communion to a bride at her wedding ceremony because she wore a 
decollete wedding gown. * * * At last one of the maids of honor 
ran from the sanctuary, and soon ajopeared with a shawl, which was 
spread over the bare neck and shoulders of the newly-made wife, and 
the priest then consented to administer the cherished communion." 
How is this for one who has vowed in baptism to renounce the "world, 
the flesh, and the devil?" Was she a model of modesty in dress to 
emulate by non-Catholics? Oh, but you will say, "Did not the 
priest's course in the matter 'fehow that the church's teachings on 
raorals is right after all?" If so, where was the influence of the 
church's teachings that would let one go so far in the first place that 
one had to be rebuked in public for one's conduct? 

Osbervation has led me to believe that the virtue in the Catholic 
church is based principally on the fear of punishment, the hope of 
reward, and human respect, rather than on principle or love for Grod 
and for man. Will you say the love of God dwells in a house where 
the walls are decorated only with holy pictures; where a rosary may 
be found on a post of every bed; where a holy water font hangs at 
every bed-room door; where a Madonna stands on every dresser, and 
the inmates of it cannot get along together, so that one leaves and 
works for others, and a stranger must be employed to do the work 
of the one that left? Does the love of God dwell in that home fur- 
nished as the one just mentioned, where the husband twenty years 
after the offense happened, which was the refusal of the wife to give 



23 

any more of her inheritance to her husband to put into a losing ven- 
ture, still spoke of his wife as that "false woman?" a. f . y. Yet all 
of these people were regarded as pious and as "practical" Catholics. 
They would go to Mass whenever the opportunity presented itself, 
would recite the rosary, if one believed what they said, from one to 
three times daily, gain all the indulgences offered by the church, went 
to the sacraments regularly, abserved the feast days, and yet, to learn 
of the inside doings of these homes, one would think heathens and 
raging hell dwelt in them instead of the "chosen and elect" of God 
and His Church. Where is the influence of the teachings of the 
church, with its doctrine af an eternal hell, on morals when a young 
woman, who was placed in a convent at as early an age as girls would 
be admitted to it; who made it her home from that time till she 
attained her majority, even spending her vacations at the convent, yet 
within ten years after leaving the convent she entered a house of ill- 
fame ? She was virtually an orphan, her only living parent having 
married again when she was yet a child, the parent placing her in the 
convent so she would not be in the way of her parent's second matri- 
monial alliance. Yet her Catholic training, with its doctrine of an 
eternal hell, did not sufficiently fortify her virtue so as to withstand 
successfully the temptations which surround a poor working girl in 
a large city. The doctrine of an eternal hell did not, under the stress 
of a hard struggle for an ordinary living amidst temptations, have the 
salutary infliTence of restraining her from falling. 

From what has so far been ssid, then, it may be seen that if the 
belief in an eternal hell were generally destroyed, and the reasonable 
doctrine of punishment for sin of "measure for measure" — "until the 
last farthing is paid" — were substitued in its place, it would not be 
any more "fraught with danger to morals," would it, than is the doc- 
trine of an eternal hell, a place which may be escaped, however, after 
"a whole life of iniquity and rebellion," simply by having it cancelled 
in the confessional by "one act of obedience and humility?" (7:393) 
or by accepting the doctrine of "justification through faith in Christ," 
(15:19) even at the last moment and be "jerked to Jesiis" as the 
"Iconoclast" calls it? a. f. y. Some one had taken an excursion 
through Heaven to see who were there, and the following is a part of 
his experiences. " 'Who are those people bearing down upon us with 
crashing cymbals and loud hosannahs?' asked the scribe. 'That,' re- 
plied the seraph, 'is Murderers Band. Those people were all hanged 



24 

for infamous crimes; but when they found they were in for it — that 
they could not get a commutation of sentence to life imprisonment — 
repented, and were jerked to Jesus.?' * * * 'Hello, Jim! How did 
you break in here? Where's Julia?' 'Oh, Julia 's in hell,' said Jim 
gayly, as he swept the strings of his instrument and cried. 'Grlory, 
glory, glory! You see she didn't have time to repent. She tried to 
shake me and I brained her with a hatchet. I got religion, and here 
I am, with two pairs of reversible wings — came direct from the scaf- 
fold. But Julia 's frizzling in everlasting fire.' " 14:32, Vol. 1. 

One may ask in a case like this, of which there are, no doubt, 
many like it, or nearly similar to it, if this be just and reasonable that 
one who was equally as guilty of sin as the other, should be in Heaven 
simply because he had a chance to repent, and the other be in "ever- 
lasting fire" ssmply because she had no chance to repent of a sinful 
life? Look this question fairly in the face, and then ask yourself the 
question: Whether or not an everlasting hell for sonie woiald not be 
an injustice to them? Has justice no recompense for such? Oh, but 
it may be said that the murderer, though saved from eternal punish- 
ment, will be punished temporarily, in purgatory. Let us see whether 
a mvirderer, who has sincere sorrow for his sin, may not go to Heaven 
immediately after death. "St. Alphousus, in his book, Glories of 
Mary^ tells of a poor sinner who, among other crimes, had killed his 
father and brother, and was in consequence a fugitive. One day in 
Lent, after hearing a sermon on the mercy of God, he went to confess 
his sins to the preacher himself. The confessor, on hearing the en- 
ormous crimes which he had committed, sent him to the altar of the 
Blessed Virgin, that she might obtain for him heartfelt sorrow and 
the pardon of his sins. The sinner obeyed and began to pray. The 
sorrow obtained for him by the Mother of God was so great that he 
suddenly died from excess of grief. On the following day, while the 
priest was recommending the soul of the deceased sinner to the pray- 
ers of the people, a white dove appeared in the church, and let a card 
drop at his feet. The ijriest took it up, and found the following 
words written on it: 'The soul of the deceased, on leaving the body, 
went straight to Heaven. Continue thou to preach the infinite mercy 
of God.' " 7:318. Is that narrative a fact or fable? If a fable, 
then what is one to believe of what the priests say, and if a fact, then 
how about the murdered father and brother who were probably struck 
down in sin without time left before death to make even an act of 



25 

contrition ? Has God no mercy or recompense for such ? The deeper I 
get into this question of eternal punishment the more unjust, un- 
reasonable, and blasphemous does it appear to me. It degrades God's 
character and reduces Him to the level, as I have already stated, of 
an inhuman brute whose cruel hand, that would inflict unreasonable, 
vindictive punishment on man or animal, must be stayed by the 
"Humane Society" from inflicting it. Will you place God's character 
beneath that of the noble and merciful and reasonable characters of 
the "Humane Society," or of the "Bands of Mercy?" If not, then be 
careful that you do not sin against God by dishonoring and blas- 
hpeming Him by upholding and defending the doctrine of eternal 
torments. Are Catholics consistent with their belief in eternal pun- 
ishment, when they lead the sinful lives that the priest himself speaks 
of, already quoted, on page 397 of his book, (7:) that they are leading? 
And I suppose he speaks from observation and experience in the con- 
fessional. Are Catholics non compus mentus (not sound in mind) 
because they lead the lives he says they do in the face of the belief in 
eternal punishment? What would be your opinion of a man who had 
all his worldly possessions in a building exposed to all kinds of danger 
and destruction by fire, yet would not insure them on the plea that he 
had a barrel of water [act of contrition] handy, or because he was just 
opposite the fire department [in reach of a priest's call] and could 
therefore readily save or have his possessions saved in case a fire 
broke out and threatened the destruction of them? Would it be any 
different from that which it would be of a Catholic who believed in 
eternal punishment, yet lived in sin until a sicknese overtakes one, ex- 
pecting to be "saved" on the death bed? Is life so certain that one 
will always have an opportunity to make an act of contrition — which I 
have already shown is partly a lie — or have a priest at the time of 
death? How many a.ie there, who, in appai'ently good health, meet 
with sudden, accidental and unexpected death. Even Catholics meet 
such fates. "Mrs. , aged 60, died suddenly Sunday after- 
noon. * * * Miss , aged 28, * * * died suddenly Monday 

afternoon." (16: June 27, 1902.) Young and old these cases were, 
and both notices of their deaths in the same issue of the paper. Is 
the following more conductive to morality, and less "franght with 
danger to morals," with its belief in an eternal hell, than is the belief 
in what one sows one will reap, — in other words, punishment of sin 



26 

measure for measure, until the last farthing is paid, and not punish- 
ment forever? 

"No matter what sin a man commits, if, in the very act of com- 
mitting it, the Almighty God strikes him, one moment is enough to 
make an act of contrition, to shed one tear of sorrow, and to save the 
soul. The murderer, even though expiring, his hands reddened with 
the blood of his victim, can send forth one cry for mercy, and in that 
cry be saved. The robber stricken down in the very midst of his mis- 
deeds, can cry for mercy on his soul. The impure man, even while he 
is revelling in his impurity, if he feel the chilly hand of death laid 
upon him, and cry out, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' in that cry 
may be saved." 7:126. 

Is it not more of a comfort and a consolation to the bereaved to 
know that their departed loved ones, no matter how depraved they 
may have been on this earth, will suffer only "until the last farthing 
is paid," and be finally redeemed.or else be annihilated, if they are so 
depraved as to be beyond all hope of a final redemption, than to be in 
suspense and doubt whether or not they may be in hell to suffer and 
writhe in indescrible agony, despair and woe for ever and ever, with- 
out end? Is not my view of God's character more in accordance with 
that of Jesus' while on earth, who is supposed to have reflected the 
"fulness of the God-head," which means God's character, than is that 
of the orthodox church which represents Him as vindicitive, revenge- 
ul, and unrelenting, when it can have no salutary or reformatory 
effect any longer, because time shall be no more, therefore no more 
probation according to the teachings of the church ? 

We will now consider that phase of hell which is supposed to 
cause felicity to the saints in heaven, when looking into the abyss 
they behold the damned in torments. To me it appears that only a 
fiend could find delight in beholding the sufferings of others, espec- 
ially the kind of suffering they must endure in hell according to the 
teachings of the orthodox church. "O what a wound this must make 
in the hearts of those miserable creatures! To be obliged to suffer so 
many torments forever, and in the presence of their judge, and of 
their greatest enemies, the saints; to be forced to suffer this to the in- 
crease of their felicity." 9:99. Yes, it must, indeed, be to the "in- 
crease of their felicity" for a father and mother to look into the abyss 
to see and to know what a "wound must this make in the heart" of 
their daughter, or son — as for instance I, who am a "regular heretic," 



27 

and will therefore be in hell with Luther and other arch heretics 
(17:74)— "to suffer so many torments forever" in their presence. The 
Church, in speaking of the love the saints had for us on earth says: 
"This love does not cease after death, for love never dies," (5:606) 
therefore they still love us in Heaven while we are yet on earth. If 
that is the case with saints for those towards whom they sustained no 
blood relation, while on earth, can it then be different with those who 
did? If not, and "love never dies," can you have increased felicity in 
looking into hell and there seeing probably a father, or a mother, or a 
daughter, or a son, or a husband, who was loving and kind to you, and 
to others, but because he was outside the fold of the Catholic church 
he had no j)art with the drunken, cursing, and cruel husband who had 
the consolation of the Catholic church when he could no longer abuse 
and curse you, — on account of being too ill and who then died — or a 
wife, or a friend, or even one who was your enemy here? If you can, 
then you are certainly fit for the orthodox Heaven, wherein it seems 
there is even Bible warrant that saints in character on earth become 
impatient longers for the avenging of their blood on earth, after they 
get to Heaven. "And they cried with a great voice, saying. How 
long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not .judge and avenge our 
blood on them that dwell on earth?" (Rev. 6:10, Standard Edition 
1901.) Here is what a saint, of the Anglican church, I believe, who 
died in London in 1691, has to say about being deeply affected with 
happiness on the general judgment day to see the most doomed to 
everlasting flames. "It must affect us deeply with the sense of our 
mercy and hapj)iness, to see the most of the world tremble with terror, 
while we triumph with joy, to hear them doomed to everlasting 
flames, when we are proclaimed heirs of the kingdom." 18:49. 
Make your own comments. I just brought this out in order to bring 
the Angelican church, or whichever church the author of the "Saints' 
Everlasting Rest" was a member of, a step nearer towards a union of 
it with the Catholic church, both of whom seem to believe that the 
felicity and happiness of their members will be "increased" and 
"deeply" affected in beholding tlie sufferings of the doomed in an 
everlasting fire. Here is a quotation from the last book quoted which 
Ingersoll must have read and had in mind when he said: "Grod says 
to me, 'Forgive your enemies,' I say, 'I do;' but He says, 'I will damn 
mine.' "8:37. "The principal author of hell-torments is God himself. 



self. * * * He hath prepared those torments for his enemies.' 
18:136. Mr. Ingersoll was about right, according to this, was he not, 
in what he said? Here is some more of the noble conception (?) of 
God's character. "The torments of the damned must be extreme, be- 
cause they are the effect of divine vengeance. Wrath is terrible, bu* 
vengeance is implacable." 18:138. Does it not seem that the church 
of which the author of the "Saints' Everlasting Rest" was a member, 
and the Catholic church ought to sail in the same ship instead of in 
two? Well, if both will go on the gang plank of the same ship, I wil l 
try to give them a few more boosts which may land them together on 
it, for that is my object, to drive all [believers in God and the immor- 
tality of the soul into One church, be that One church afterwards 
called Catholic, or Anglican, or Episcopal, or Baptist, or Methodist, 
or Presbyterian, or Lutheran, or Christian, or Unitarian, or Christian 
Science, or Dowieite, or Donkhabor matters nothing to me, just so 
they are one, that they may present a formidable front against the on- 
slaughts of atheism, agnosticism, infidelity, and evil of all kinds.' '"1 ".^ 
If the following is true can there, then, be any place for the vin- 
dictive, revengeful, and the unreasonable doctrine of eternal torments? 
"God is the best and tenderest of fathers, and we are all His children. 
But God has not only the heart of a father. He has also the heart of 
a mother towards us. His frail, erring children. He himself assures us 
of this when He says : 'I shall take you in my arms. I shall caress 
you. I shall press you to my heart, as a mother caresses her darling 
child.' Again He says: 'Can a mother forget her own child?' and 
adds: 'even should a mother forget her own child, I shall not forget 
you.' Yes, God loves not only like a mother, but even more than a 
mother. But His love is not sufficiently known among men. Why, 
we do not even understand the great love which lies in a mother's 
heart, much less the boundless love that bums in the heart of God. 
How great is the happiness of a good Christian mother whose son is 
virtuous and obedient! How intense is her love for him! She cannot 
herself measure the greatness of her love; but one thing she does 
know, and this is, if it were possible for her, she would love him even 
a thousand times more tenderly and ardently than she does. Such 
also is the love even of the j)oor mother whose child is disobedient 
and wicked, abuses her and curses her. He runs away from home; he 
prefers the society of wicked companions to her love. How the heart 
of that poor mother bleeds. Her days and nights are spent in weeping. 



29 

Her life is dark and desolate. But does she hate her child, or cerse 
to love him because of his ingratitude? Ah, no! far from it. Her 
love only grows stronger and more tender.' " 7:271-272. 

In the face of the foregoing, how, it may be asked, can the same 
author speak of God as being "deaf to their cries," when the damned 
in torments cry to Him, "O God of justice, God of vengeance ! come, 
destroy me; annihilate this being Thou hast given me?" 7:266 I 
will let Dr. J. E'. Roberts answer this question. In a sermon delivered 
on Sunday, October 5, 1902, on the subject of "There Is No Darkness 
but Ignorance," he said in part, which I believe is a good answer to 
be used to the foregoing question. "The human world has suffered 
much from the tongue of slander. Men have been paid to paint it 
bad. It has been damned for revenue. Upon every pulpit hang the 
red lights proclaiming danger. The pulpit has derived its power from 
fear, fear of the future, fear of hell, fear of God. Under the inflence 
of fear men will sacrifice their rights, their reason, their conscience. 
Sufficiently frightened men will do anything senseless, insane, absurd. 
Fear makes men abject, subservient, servile; they can be controlled. 
This the pulpit has understood, and has threatened and thundered. 
There Is an intimate connection between hell and the contribution 
box." 19, Oct. 6, 1902. Is that a good answer or not? a. f. y. 

What effect, we may ask, has the doctrine of eternal punishment 
had on mankind? Has it not driven and kept out of the church a 
large per centage of reasonable, thinking and noble people and made 
their posterity atheists and unbelievers, finally? a. f . y. 

Here is what a Universalist minister has to say about the impres- 
sion of the preaching of the doctrine of eternal torments: "What 
miserable play-actorism is it when, to win men's heart, mercy masque- 
rades behind a fictitious wrath — when, to impress men, justice 
caricatures herself! But the moral effect of this doctrine has been 
greatly overestimated. Its very extravagance has destroyed its force; 
so that instead of restraint it has become a mockery, and men bent on 
evil have laughed at the idle threat." Pamphlet No. 10. 

If we look about us and read what clergymen have to say of the 
conduct of their flocks, does it not appear to be about the truth, that 
the preaching of an endless hell has been so extravagant that it has 
destroyed its force, so that instead of restraint it has greatly "become 
a mockery" and an "idle threat?" a. f . y. Would it not be better, then, 
to substitute in its place the more reasonable and just doctrine of 



30 

IDunisliment of sin "measure for measure," and 'until the last farthing is 
paid," with no forgiveness unless the sin is forsaken and restitution is 
made? a. f. y. 

As my reasonings, deductions, and arguments may appeal to the 
unbeliever, and no doubt they do to the various bodies of believers 
who do not believe any longer any way in eternal jjunishment, yet 
there is without question a large number to whom they may appear 
reasonable and just, but they can not accept my conclusions because 
they feel they are in conflict and contrary to the Scrij)tures. As I 
will subsequently devote a chapter to the Bible I will, now touch but 
a few points bearing on the doctrine of an endless hell. Dr. Dowie, 
being about as literal in his interpretations of the Scriptures, from 
"cover to cover," as any that I know of, I will quote him first on what 
he has to say on the doctrine of an endless hell from a Scriptural 
standpoint. In a pamphlet of his entitled "The Everlasting Gospel," 
he says: "This Gospel tells us that on this earth there will come a 
time when no man shall say to his brother, 'Know the Lord: for all 
shall know Him, from the least unto the greatest of them.' The 
so-called various denominational churches, which are ever proclaiming 
their own orthodoxy, have no such broad catholicity. They tell you 
of an everlasting damnation, and the man who could believe in it 
would be as depraved as the man who conceived it. 'But,' says the 
Presbyterian, 'there is no way by which His j^erishing may return.' 
What? A temporal fault as bad as it may be, is to be punished with 
an eternal punishment? Who says that? Not God. 'Oh,' some say, 
'it was the Christ Himself who said it,' 'These shall go away into 
everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal.' Did the 
man who quoted that to you tell you what punishment meant? Had 
he sense enough? Did he know Greek enough to tell you what 
Jcolasis meant? Had he honesty enough to tell you that the word 
translated punishment is the word that is translated through all that 
language for pruning, /coladso, and that the idea in the word is not 
the destruction of the tree, but the pruning of it with a sharp knife, 
that the tree may be saved and may bear more fruit. He did not tell 
you? No; he had the fear of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church 
before his eyes. He had the fear of the Lutheran Synod. He had 
the fear of that Deacon in his Baptist Church whom he feared more 
than he did the Devil or God. He had the fear of man, but he did 
not have the fear of God, or he would have told you, unless he was 



31 

too ignorant, which is common regarding men who tell you that they 
know the Gospel which they are preaching. He was too ignorant or 
he was too dishonest to tell you that the word j)unishment had no 
such idea as eternal damnation, eternal torture, and eternal separation 
from God. * * * The Everlasting Gospel in Zion tells us of an 
Everlasting God, whose 'mercy endureth forever,' who will seek the 
sinful and the sorrowing until He finds them, and until He has blessed 
them. That opens your eyes! That is not the Gospel you have been 
getting. 'Doctor,' they say, 'it is not the Gospel we expected you to 
preach, you who have such a sharp knife.' Thank God for the sharp 
knife. I have come to prune you, 'that you may bring forth more 
fruit.' The fact is that most of you are not bringing forth any fruit, 
and you never will until you are properly 'punished,' until you are 
properly 'pruned.' And, if you won't submit to that, now, on earth, 
then it must be done, hereafter, in hell." Vol. 4, No. 8:22-23. 

As I am no Greek scholar I do not know whether Dr. Dowie's 
translation is correct or not, but it must be true, for it is the more 
reasonable of the two, — his translation and that of the Catholic Church, 
— and also more in accordance with the conception of God's character, 
whose "mei-cy endureth forever." For of what benefit would it be 
to any one to be told that God's "mercy endureth forever" if it could 
not be availed of forever? The church teaches that after the uni- 
versal judgment there will no longer be any dwelling places but 
heaven and hell, and if there is to be no redemption out of hell then 
of what import is the message that God's "mercy endureth forever?" 
Surely those in heaven will no longer need God's mercy. It must 
then be made available of in hell when time shall be no more, if God's 
"mercy endureth foreverr," or else that passage is a lie and should be 
l^urged from the Bible. Which will you have? 

If God's mercy, and repentance can not be made available of be- 
yond this life, and there is no annihilation, and the savage and 
heathen know not Christ — and, therefore, have done nothing to merit 
Heaven — where will they go? Would it be just to condemn them to 
eternal torments, because they had never heard of Christ's gospel 
here on earth ? Another difficulty, eh ? According to the conclusions 
to which a writer in "Zion's Watch Tower," Allegheny, Pa., of Janu- 
ary 15, 1901, arrived at there is such a thing as annihilation for those 
who "prove themselves unworthy of God's gift," * * * "The second 
death should be dreaded and shunned by all, since it is to be the end 



32 

of existence to all those deemed unworthy of life. But in it there can 
be no suflPering. Like Adamic death, it is the extinction of life." 
Pp. 33, 43. Now, this writer's conclusions are in accordance with the 
following texts, although he does not quote them. "I say to you: but 
unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish." Luke 13:3. 
The question now hinges on the word "perish." Does it mean physi- 
cal death or soul death ? If it means the former then it would imply 
that Jesus' mission was to save from physical death, for He spoke of 
Gralileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices ; and if 
He meant soul perishing or death then it must mean the extinction of 
its life in the same sense as the extinction of the bodily life of Jesus 
at Jerusalem was meant when He spoke of Himself in the same chap- 
ter, verse 33. "Nevertheless I must walk today, and tomorrow, and 
the day following, because it can not be that a prophet perish out of 
Jerusalem." If the word "perish" here meant the destruction or ex- 
tinction of bodily life, when speaking of Himself, it must also mean 
the destruction or extinction of the soul life, which would mean its 
annihilation, when He speaks of doing penance to avert such an end. 
Is this not a logical inference and conclusion? a. f. y. Again: in 
John 3:16, it says: "For God so loved the world, as to give His only 
begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but 
may have life everlasting." Here "perish" must mean the opposite of 
everlasting life, which would be everlasting death, — perished — being a 
punishment, yet not a conscious one. In Matt. 7:13, 14, it says: 
"Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the 
way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. 
How narrow is the gate, and straight is the way, that leadeth to life: 
and few there are that find it." Now, the ones who do not find the 
way that leadeth to life will go to "destruction," and here is the way 
in which it is meant. In the same chapter, verse 19, it is illustrated. 
"Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, 
and shall be cast into the fire." Now, what does this symbolize but 
destruction, annihilation? We know that when a tree is not cut down 
it is preserved, but when it is cut down, and cast into the fire, that it 
is consumed, destroyed, annihilated. Such then must be the end of 
those who have done nothing to merit Heaven, and who have persis- 
tently denied the existence of God and the soul. Instead of being 
preserved in conscious punishment they are destroyed, annihilated. 
Matthew 13:30, is to the same point. "Suflfer both to grow until the 



33 

harvest, and in 'the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: 
Gather up the cockle, and bind it into bundles to bum, but the wheat 
gather ye into my barn." I remember when I was yet on the farm 
that we would separate the grain from the chaff, refuse, and put it into 
the barn to be preserved, but the chaff, refuse, we would burn, destroy, 
annihilate. Matthew 3:12, is also to the point. "Whose fan is in his 
hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor, and gather his wheat 
into the barn, but the chaff he will bum with unquenchable fire." 
"Aha," some one will say, "now I have you, does not 'unquenchable 
fire' mean everlasting fire?" No; but it means that when the chaff is 
once afire or burning it will not be quenched by itself until it has 
consumed the chaff. It may be seen, then, that "unquenchable fire" 
does not necessarily mean everlasting fire does it? a. f. y. Read also 
2 Pet. 3:9 — 43, and see if an everlasting hell will exist after those 
things come to pass that are mentioned there. Also 1 Cor. 3:11 — 15, 
which shows that unless a man has built on the foundation of Christ, 
he will not be saved, but will burn up with the wood, hay and stubble. 
From the quotations cited thus far it may be seen, then, that un- 
less one has raised one's self to the plane of existence which admits 
the existence of God and the soul, and who, therefore, strives to enter 
into that condition of mind which is Christ-like in purity, goodness, 
and good deeds or works, among the people in the world — not only in 
a desert, a cave, or a cloister — will perish, go to destruction, be anni- 
hilated. This is also the view of others, whose works I have read. 
In a book called "Evolution of Immortality," the writer has this to 
say: "Neither Sts. Peter, James, or John intimate anywhere in their 
letters that they have the remotest expectation of continued existence 
for any except those who fulfil the condition which is the burden of 
their message. They expect future life solely for those who are, in 
their phrase, 'in Christ,' 'have passed from dead into living,' 'have 
been bom again,' who have been made 'new creatures.' They assume 
throughout that>this kind of man has, through his affections and con- 
science, reached to a stage of psychical being which differentiates him 
from the 'natural' man. They expect immortality for him, not be- 
cause he is a 'man,' but because he has become something more." 
20:120. Henry Drummond in his book, "The Natural Law in the 
Spiritual World," comes to the conclusion, on scientific ground, that 
unless a man be "born again," that is, rises out of the fleshly or nat- 
ural life into the spiritual or soul life, the soul will, through neglect, 



84 

"inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay." 21:99. Mr. Hud- 
son in his book, "The Law of Psychic Phenomena," comes to the con- 
clusion that a persistent denial of the existence of the soul, and of 
God, produces a psychic effect which must ultimately lead to the de- 
struction of the soul's consciousness. "We find a spiritual j^enalty 
following a violation of spiritual law in what Christ taught regarding 
the sin against the Holy Ghost. Just what that sin consists of, never 
has been satisfactorily defined. We are told that it is a sin which 
can not be forgiven. It must, therefore, consist of a violation of some 
fundamental law of the soiil's existence, the penalty for which is in- 
evitable according to the fixed laws of God. It can not be a moral 
offence, consisting simply in wrong-doing, for such sins can be 
atoned for. A moral offence so gross that a God of infinite mercy and 
love can not forgive it, and, if the Scriptures are to be believed, does 
not stand ready to forgive it when proper atonement is made, can not 
be conceived. * * * We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion 
that, as before remarked, the sin against the Holy Ghost must consist 
of a violation of the fundamental law of the soul's existence. It must, 
therefore, be the sin of unbelief, and consists of a blasphemous denial 
of the existence of the soul and its Father, God. This would be in 
strict accordance with the fundamental law of suggestion, as it has 
been scientifically demonstrated to exist. The emjjhatic and persis- 
tent denial of the soul's existence must eventually prove to be a sug- 
gestion so strong as to overcome its instinctive belief in its own exis- 
tence, and thus neutralize its instinctive desire for immortal life. It 
would, therefore, have the same effect as unbelief arising from a want 
of knowledge, or a lack of the intellectual power to conceive the idea 
of immortality. The soul, in either case, could not have a conscious- 
ness of its own existence or individuality." 22:394, 395. 

It was after reading the Bible and books on both sides of the sub- 
ject, and after reasoning and reflecting on it as earnestly and deeply 
as I was capable of doing, that I was finally forced to the conclusion 
and conviction that those who are so utterly depraved — and such there 
are, for I have talked with them, and read the writings of such — as to 
deny the existence of God and the soul, and who no longer are re- 
strained by conscience from wrong-doing, only restrained by the laws 
of the land, and the love of human respect, that such will, after they 
have suffered the measure of wrong they have meted out to others, be 
annihilated, destroyed, overcome by the second death, and that they 



35 

will not suffer the unreasonable, vindictive, and everlastings punish- 
ment the church teaches. Is not such a belief more God honoring, 
and just as conducive to morality as the teachings of the church re- 
garding an eternal hell? a. f. y. 

I will make a little digression here, while the quotation from Mr. 
Hudson's book is still fresh on your mind regarding the effect of the 
suggestion on the soul by a persistent denial of its existence and of 
God, and that is, are not the agnostics going to commit an irreparable 
wrong to children to teach them the non-existence of God? Even 
though they should grow up to be apparently moral men and women, 
yet the fact will remain that the "emphatic and persistent denial" of 
.the existence of God will eventually cause them to have a seared con- 
science, unrestrained from committing a wrong only by the law and 
the love of human respect. To me it seems a most dangerous princi- 
ple to inculcate directly into the minds of children. Here are the 
facts: "A new sect of agnostics is to be founded on the teachings of 

Robert Ingersoll, with headquarters at . Attorney -; , of 

that city * * * is at work on rituals for the dedication of infants to 
agnosticism and the confirmation of children in the belief in the non- 
existence of God." "I hereby bind myself to even treat them [child- 
ren] with the utmost kindness and consideration and pledge myself to 
send them to the agnostic Sunday school and to give to them all the 
educational advantages within my power." 23: June 6, 1901, p. 723. 
[The latter part of this quotation is a part of the husband's pledge in 
the agnostic marriage ritual.] What do you suppose will be the state 
of affairs in a few generations, in this country, if such a movement is 
not met with the "arms of the intellect," and with reason by a united 
Christian Church? Will it be any less than a "Reign of Terror," 
of the days of the "Commune," when a harlot was placed on 
the altar of the church of Notre Dame, Paris, and hailed as the 
Goddess of Reason? 54:110. Think of what the result may be in a 
few generations with children directly taught the non-existence of 
God, supplemented with "all the educational advantages," to give 
them an education that will fit them to become a lot of well educated 
persons without a conscience, Would not a formidable number of 
that class of persons be fraught with much danger to the home and to 
the state? It is the so-called honorable, highly respected, leading 
lawyer who now already has the brazen effrontery to say in a crowded 
court room that bribery is only a "conventional crime," that, therefore 



36 

the briber before the jury ought not to be punished. But I am glad 
to say the jury thought otherwise. 

Getting back again to the subject under consideration. I know 
there are some who differ from me on the subject of annihilation of 
the utterly depraved. There is one writer who does not believe in 
annihilation of the soul, because it is even opposed to the known 
truths of science, saying that "In the vocabulary of science there is 
no such word as annihilation./ 25:243. But he does not tell us that 
it is also an axiom of science that "from nothing, nothing comes," 
therefore God did not create matter from nothing. Is that not rather 
a weak argument for the non-annihilation of the soul, because "in the 
vocabvilary of science there is no such word as annihilation?" a. f. y. 
When God gets ready, or wants to annihilate anything. He will not 
concern Himself about the "vocabulary of science," will he? 

We may see, then, that the belief in annihilation for the totally 
depraved soul, after it has "paid all the debt," is a just, reasonable, 
and Scripturally conclusive one. It would redound more to the honor 
and glory of God to annihilate a soul that is so depraved as to be 
beyond all hopes of a final redemption, than to let it linger in agony, 
despair, pain and woe forever and ever, even though it would decrease 
the "felicity" and the "happiness" of the "saints" of the Catholic and 
Anglican Churches, because they would not then have an everlasting 
abyss to look down to and behold the doomed and damned in it. 

"Oh," but you will probably say, "there are too many other 
passages in Scripture which warrant the belief of a never-ending hell 
for some." Yes, and there are also many passages warranting a belief 
in either a final redemption for all, or a final annihilation for the 
totally depraved, — and by the totally depraved I mean those who up to 
their last moment of life deny the existence of God and the soul. 
They may withal be persons of apparently good morals, but as they 
have persistently suggested to themselves that there is no God, nor 
soul of person, their minds have thereby become so tenacious here 
against those beliefs that their minds are not likely to yield their 
beliefs on another plane of existence, and will therefore be overcome 
by the Second Death, which is the final operation of the law of Evo- 
lution, or onward or upward progress. So what are you going to do 
about it when the same authority lends color to three diflPerent views? 
The only way out of the difficulty, then, is to use reason, intellect, and 
common sense, and make a comparison of God's character with that of 



37 

His most noble creatures. And shall we have a less exalted opinion 
of God's character than we have of His most noble creatures? Of 
course, I know it is a common harangue of unbelievers to say that the 
character of the God's of different people are usually like their own, 
but that is nothing to the point in my conception of His character. 

Is it "blind sentiment" to have at least as exalted an opinion of 
God's character as we have of His most noble creatures? Yet a 
Catholic writer, when speaking of the reasonableness of eternal 
punishment, says: "Let us judge of the relation between mercy and 
punishment, not according to blind sentiment but in the light of 
reason." 26:409. Is it "blind sentiment," or in the "light of reason," 
when I say that the following, if carried out, would be unreasonable 
and unmerciful? "What a good bargain you made to take the pains 
of eternity in exchange for the sin of a day, an hour, a moment." 
* * * "Millions of souls are cast into hell for one mortal sin." 
7:241-321. Again: What is our relation to God? Are. we subjects 
of His like the subjects of a monarch? Are we not His children, and, 
therefore, bear the relation to Him of father and child? And what 
earthly parent would even for a day continually torment a child, as we 
are taught to believe God will do forever and ever, and with even a 
torture of such great severity that all earthly torture would be but as 
painted torture in comparison with it, if theologians are to be believed? 
If any inhuman brute should attemj^t to inflict such a punishment 
for a day only, the "Humane Society," some of whose members are 
priests, and Protestant ministers who preach an eternal hell, would 
invoke powers to stay the hand of such a brute, yet their God would 
inflict a worse torture forever and ever. Would these preachers of an 
eternal hell stay the hand of God from inflicting a punishment more 
than equal to that of the inhuman brute, whose hand they would stay, 
if they had the power, or do they think what would be reprehensible 
in man would be honorable and justifiable in God? 

Since the thought came to me of making a comparison of God's 
character with that of the noblest of His creatures, some of whom are 
members of the Humane Society, and of the Bands of Mercy; and 
when I think of the period of intense suffering through which I 
passed a few years ago, when in the long weary nights in pain, fever, 
and sickness I heard every tick of the clock, and counted each second 
as it slowly passed by, I can no longer believe in the never-ending 
torments of hell as taught by the Catholic Church. To do so now I 



38 

would have to place the characters of God's noble creatures above 
Him, and this I cannot do. To me it seems it would now be a sin and 
a blasphemy for me to believe in everlasting punishment. I believe 
it is about time for preachers of an everlasting hell, who lead lives 
that are inconsistent with a firm faith in the doctrine, to cease preaching 
it. Already in Mr. Channing's time, in 1836, was this inconsistency 
manifest. "The ministers who deal most in terrors, who preach doc- 
trines which ought to make their flesh creep, and to turn their eyes 
into fountains of tears, are not generally distinguished by their spare 
forms and haggard countenances. They take the world as easily as 
people of a milder creed." 27:426. Mentioning the words "spare 
forms," reminds me of two missionaries who once held a mission in 
Kansas City. One of them was a man of about 350 pounds in weight, 
who one evening, before the regular sermon, by the other missionary, 
was preached, gave a short discourse and instruction on the terrible 
punishment that sin deserved, and the great value of confession and 
how to make it. Now, in the Catholic Church it is regarded as a 
mortal sin to laugh or talk when it is unnecessary, or to be wilfully 
distracted. When the principal speaker was to deliver the sermon for 
the evening, after the 350 pound missionary, who looked more like he 
might be in the business that made Milwaukee famous than being a 
poverty -vowed missionary of Christ, had delivered his little discourse, 
and was ready to begin hearing confessions, he said, I exhort you to 
make your confessions as soon as possible for our time with you is 
limited. There will be priests in the confessionals to hear you and 
you need not fear this "thin, puny consumptive," for you will find 
that he is not as terrible as he talks. On Sunday evening of the 
opening day of this mission this same missionary — who ought to be 
called a comedian instead of a poverty-vowed missionary of Christ — 
when he stepped into the pulpit, before the audience which crowded 
the church to the doors, to deliver his sermon, he surveyed the great 
audience before him a few moments, as is customary with public 
speakers, and he must have surveyed it rather closely, too; for after 
he had made a few gestures with his head he said: "Glory to God! if 
you women all expect to get husbands I don't see where they'll come 
from." Both of these remarks caused quite a ripple of laughter. 
Now, I ask, does this look like they were consistent in their beliefs, or 
that they believed their faith which teaches eternal punishments, and 
that it is a mortal sin for any such conduct in the Catholic Church, in 



39 

the presence of the Blessed Sacrament wherein it is believed Jesus 
Christ — God — is present? a. f. y. If the words of one of their own 
are to be believed, the priests are fond of taking things easy and are 
money tainted and need reforming, in order to preach effectively. In 
the Winchester conference of missionaries to non-Catholics, held in 
August, 1901, one of the priests spoke the following: "We Catholics 
believe that there are 64,000,000 souls surrounding us — with whom we 
are intimately connected — perishing for the want of Catholic faith, 
and our cleregy in many instances, religious and secular, sit supinely 
back taking matters easily — nay, refusing in fact to bestir themselves! 
Great God! do we believe our faith at all, or if we did, could we act 
in this way? What is the cause of it all? * * * The truth is 
that, as a whole, we have become tainted. Money^— the love of which 
is the root of all evil — and the comfort and ease of this world's goods, 
which has corrupted to a greater or less extent the whole American 
people, has also tainted us. * * * If we expect to convert this 
country to Catholic faith, it is not merely by sermons, or lectures, or 
question boxes, or newspapers, or literature, but in the same old, old, 
old way made use of by the apostles and the saints who have gone 
before us. * * * It is necessary for us first to reform ourselves. * * * 
Not until our clergy seek more purely for the glory of God and the sal- 
vation of souls, and are less influenced by ease, comfort, and money 
and honors, and are willing to devote themselves, in spite of poverty, 
hardships, and sacrifice, purely to the salvation of souls * * * — then 
— and not until then— need we look for very great results!'' 28:128-129. 
One may ask, after reading the foregoing, "Great God!" do the 
priests believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment when they 
can "sit supinely back taking matters easily," especially if they really 
and firmly believe that without the gift of Catholic faith there is no 
salvation, as the same speaker stated was the case? For this is what 
more he said in the same speech. "I do not profess to be a prophet, 
but in my vision there is seen in the future an entire people, who 
cover the land from Hatteras to the Golden Gate, from Canada to 
Mexico, with foreheads signed with the sign of the cross, and who 
commune with the whole Catholic Church. In spirit I see the land 
covered with churches and schools and convents, and the Catholic 
cross triumphantly waving over all, and from every church, and every 
school, and every convent comes the glad music, from perhaps two 
hundred million throats, of a Te Deum Laudamus for the gift of 



40 

Catholic faith without which there is no salvation." 28:129. Does 
that priest believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment who says in 
the presence of others, "I wonder where the old man is? I'll be 
darned if I will work here all night, for I want to have some fun, too?" 
This remark was made by a young assistant priest, — who is supposed 
to have made vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience, — on a Saturday 
night at a church fair. He, two others, and I were getting the num- 
bers out of chance books preparatory to raffling them. It was getting 
along rather late in the evening and we were not near through with 
the work yet. The priest saw that his prospects to "have some, fun, 
too," as he had been having the other evenings of the week of the 
fair, "cutting up" with "sweet sixteens," were getting rather slim on 
account of the hour growing late, made the above remark in our pres- 
ence. The "old man" he mentioned was the chief pastor, whom he 
wanted he should get some one else to take his place so he couLd 
"have ^ome fun, too." He did not seem to think that the others who 
were young men in their prime, for I was then in the twenties, and 
who had not taken vows of celibacy, might want to "have some fun, 
too," with the "sweet sixteens," or "twenties" for that matter. Yet 
this priest would at times preach dramatic, heart-chilling, blood- 
freezing sermons on eternal punishment that one would have thought 
he would have imitated some of the saints who would, not look at a 
woman, even when talking to one, for fear they might commit in 
thought a mortal sin against purity, let alone to "have some fun, too," 
with them, if he were consistent in what he preached. 

Well, then, if the preaching of everlasting punishment seems not 
to cause anxiety over-much among the priests, so that they "sit 
supinely back taking matters easily," and will be "darned" if one wiU 
work all night, because one wants to "have some fun, too," is it not 
about time, then, that they conform their preaching to their living, so 
long as they will not conform their living to their preaching? It is 
such inconsistencies as these which give unbelievers a pretext for 
calling Christians only "hypocrites." 

The time is also about at hand when people will demand deeds as 
well as precepts from those who claim to have authority over them to 
teach and preach. But then my main weapon with which to drive the 
many churches into One Church, is not so much in trying to reform 
the lives of our superiors as it is to reform their doctrines and dog- 
mas. This little side excursion into the lives of some of our superiors 



41 

is only for a little diversion, so that the book will not be too dry read- 
ing, inducing you, therefore, to read it through from beginning to end, 
and not like reading the end of a novel only to see "how the story 
ends, whether they got married or not." 

From what has been said, then, so far, the Catholic Church, and 
the Protestants ones, who preach eternal torments for the damned, if 
they will continue to teach and preach an eternal hell ought to, on 
account of this doctrine alone, which I assail, to come together on a 
common platform for a united defense, but there will be others that 
will bring them still nearer together, if words have any meaning and 
the church is willing to take up the gauntlet with the "arms of intel- 
lect." 

The next subject we will consider will be that of the doctrine of 
the Atonement, which is one of the essentials with most religious 
denominations. With that doctrine successfully demolished with the 
"arms of the intellect," I believe the principal barrier to a Union of 
the Churches, or Christian Unity, will be removed. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE ATONEMENT. 

I believe there is no better way of opening this chapter than by 
quoting James Freeman Clarke's opinion of the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment. In a pamphlet entitled "Orthodox Views of the Atonement," 
he says: "This doctrine of the Atonement is considered to be at once 
the most' important, vital, and essential of aU the orthodox doctrines. 
It is also one of the most obscure and difficult to understand." 4th 
Series, No. 23, p. 3. I must admit that according to Catholic teach- 
ing, especially, it is "most obscure and difficult to understand," simply 
because it is an error, and full of blasphemies when analyzed by mak- 
ing a human analogy of it. With this doctrine demolished, there will 
then be nothing left of Transubstantiation, the Eucharist, and the 
Mass. With these three doctrines out of the way, another so-called 
impenetrable barrier to a union of Catholic and non-Catholic Christi- 
anity will be removed. We will now see what the Atonement means, 
first according to Catholic, and then according to non-Catholic teach- 
ing. In Deharbe's Catechism, No. 2, the following may be found: 
"Question 151. Why did Jesus wish to suffer so much and to die? 
In order to atone for our sins and to obtain for us grace and Heaven, 
* * * Question 152. For what sins did Jesus render satisfaction? 
For original Sin and for all the other sins of all men. Question 153. 
But why will not all men be saved? All men will not be saved be- 
cause all do not do what is necessary on their part for obtaining salva- 
tion." 29:74. Do you wonder, after reading the foregoing, that the 
doctrine of the Atonement is one of the "most obscure and difficult to 
understand?" Here we are told that Jesus rendered satisfaction for 
"original sin and for all the other sins of all men," yet an infant that 
is not baptized can not be saved, and one who has attained to the age 
of reason can not be saved from hell for actual sins committed which 
are not repented of. Is there any contradiction in this assertion ? Is 
it not as if A owed B ten dollars and C rendered satisfaction to B for 
it, yet B attaches A for it for not availing himself of the satisfaction 



43 

C rendered for A to B ? In that case, what right had B to accept Cs 
satisfaction in the first place if B attaches A anyway, simply because 
he did not avail himself of the satisfaction C rendered for him to B? 
How can a man owe God a debt unless he first commits sin, and after 
he has committed it, and Jesus has already rendered satisfaction for 
"all sins of all men" then by what law of justice and process of reason- 
ing can God damn any one ? If God damns any one after Jesus has 
rendered satisfaction for "all sins of all men" then wherein is God's 
justice in accepting the satisfaction Jesus rendered in the first place? 
"What right has B, in the first place, to accept Cs satisfaction for A, 
if B attaches A afterwards anyway, because he knew that A would not 
avail himself of Cs satisfaction? Where is the efPect of Jesus' satis- 
faction for original sin if unbaptized infants can not enter Heaven, 
(7:494) — and must therefore go to hell, as there are but two destinies, 
heaven and hell, for all, — or of His satisfaction for "all the other sins 
of all men" when only eight are saved out of ninety thousand? Is it 
any wonder, as one said once, who was denouncing the doctrine of 
everlasting punishment, the- devil would say at the end of the world, 
and snap his fingers in the face of Jesus, sneering Him for His lack of 
wisdom of knowing how to get the souls of men by the numbers he 
did, and saying to Jesus, sneeringly: "You died for all men, but I 
did not die for any, yet I get ninety thousand where you get only 
eight of them." 

I doubt whether even the "most learned" who would say that 
bribery is only a "conventional crime" could unravel this riddle, yet 
children about twelve years old are supposed to "understand" it in 
preparation of receiving their first Holy Communion. Of course we 
know they do not understand it, but simply "believe" it by an act of 
faith, and by faith one can believe as a truth the most erroneous, sup- 
erstitious, and blasphemous doctrine that can be worked out, and this 
I will try to make plain to you, by analogy, that the doctrine of the 
Atonement is, as formulated by the Catholic Church. 

There is another view of the Atonement which may be gleaned 
from the following: "Question 13. From what has Christ redeemed 
us by His sufferings and death? He has redeemed us, 1. From sin; 
2. From the slavery of the devil, who had subdued us by sin; and 3. 
From eternal damnation, which we have deserved by sin." 30:117. 
Passing the answers Nos. 1 and 3, we will consider the answer of re- 
demption "from the slavery of the devil." What does it mean to 



44 

redeem anything? I will give an illustration of what I understand it to 
be. Supposing A had a slave, B, and C paid A a ransom for the re- 
lease of B, and after the ransom has been paid A would have no fur- 
ther claim or right to B, to hold him as a slave or to annoy or harass 
him. Is this plain to you? If it is, you may see the point then, and 
in that case I ask, What right or claim has the devil to annoy and 
harass and enslave us now, if we have been ransomed and redeemed 
and bought by the blood of Jesus Christ? If you redeem or buy a 
piece of property has the former holder any longer any right or claim 
to hold your property or to encroach on it? If the former holder did 
not absolutely relinquish his right, after you had paid the price for its 
deliverance, and still annoyed and harassed you, you would, if you are 
wise, invoke the aid of the law, the "powers that be," to grant you 
peaceable possession of your property without any further trouble, 
would you not? And if the former holder had no more claims the 
"powers that be" would say to him, "hands off," in case he did not 
give you peaceable possession after the j)urchase price had been paid. 
Is this not so? Well, are we free from the annoyances of the devil? 
If not, then if Jesus has purchased us as His property, is the devil so 
powerful as to defy the "powers that be," — God — that he goes about 
encroaching on Jesus' property as though there is no God? Is God 
such an idiotic, ignorant, powerless fool that the devil can do with 
Him as he pleases, and that God dare not, therefore, say to him, 
"Hands off from my property, Mr. Devil! or I will twist off your head 
as a woman does the head of a spring chicken for Sunday dinner?" 
Who is this so-called devil, who can demand so much from God, and 
after he has gotten his demands can still cause so much woe and havoc 
to God's purchased and ransomed people? Why, this scheme of "re- 
demption" would make the devil more powerful than God. Do you 
see the erroneous and blasphemous nature of it now? Supposing a 
man had his child kidnapped, and the kidnappers required or de- 
manded a certain price as a ransom to release the child, would the 
man pay the price unless he were for the time being powerless to do 
anything otherwise in order to get his child released? And will you 
say God was so helpless, and had no power over the devil, — any more 
than the man had over the kidnappers who held his child for ransom, 
and, therefore, had to pay their price, — and not his — for its release, — 
and, therefore, had to pay the devil the price he demanded for the re- 
lease of His children? Will you dare say that? Yet this you would 



45 

have to admit as a fact if you believe in the scheme of redemption as 
formulated by theologians. And what is more, does it not seem to 
you that the scheme of redemption, instead of being a release of the 
children of Grod by the devil, is after all only a "privilege" granted to 
God's army to go in pursuit or search of souls? And that the two 
armies, the devil's and God's army, are gunning side by side, the for- 
mer equipped with double-action, rapid-firing, breech-loading, repeat- 
ing, long range Winchesters, and God's army equipped with single- 
barreled, muzzle-loading, flint-locked, short-ranged Carbines, and 
when God's army lands eight out of the devil's army's ninety thous- 
and, six of the eight have to pass through the devil's annex to hell — 
purgatory. 

I will now give a few quotations to show you that my assertions 
are true of Jesus having purchased us as His property, that He ran- 
somed and redeemed us, etc. "Christ gave Himself voluntarily up to 
death, * * * that our redemption, which required the price of 
His death upon the cross, might be effected." 5:334. "Clothing 
Himself with our mortal flesh, and having become our equal in all 
things, except in sin, shed the last drop of His blood on the cross as a 
ransom for our sins." 5:390. "Q. 8. Why is Jesus Christ called Our 
Lord? 1. As God, because, being consubstantial with the Father, He 
is like Him, Lord and creator of Heaven and earth; and 2. As Man, 
because, in the human nature. He has redeemed us and therefore 
bought us, with His Blood, as His property." 30:103. From whom 
did He buy us, from God or the devil? If from the devil, then does 
not that make God as powerless before the devil, as the man who paid 
the kidnappers for the release of his child, was powerless before the 
kidnappers? a. f. y. "What profund religious awe would fill our 
hearts on ascending Mount Calvary, where He paid by His blood the 
ransom of our souls." 31:195. "He took to Himself a mortal body, 
which He gave to suffering and death in order to pay the price of 
man's redemption." 32:47. (This last quotation is from Leo XIII., 
June 29, 1896.] To whom was the "ransom of our souls," and the 
"price of man's redemption" paid? Surely, when a ransom or a price 
is paid for anything some one has to receive it. Now, who received 
it? If words have the meaning in theology that they are understood 
to have outside of theology then who received the "ransom of our 
souls," and the "price of man's redemption?" You will hardly, in the 
face of what has already been said about it, dare say it was the devil 



46 

who received it. Then who did receive it? "Oh," it will probably be 
said "that it does not mean it was paid to any one in particular, but 
means figuratively that it was paid to God in the way of appeasing 
His wrath, or anger." Well and good, then, that is the way we will 
take it, and from quotations, which I will soon give, this is the infer- 
ence to be drawn from it, that the shedding of blood divine was to 
appease the wrath of God. "Q. Was the Incarnation necessary for 
our redemption? Yes; for as God, Christ could not suflPer; without 
an infhiitely meritorious suffering a sufficient satisfaction could not 
have been rendered to God, had not the Son of God humiliated Him- 
self before His Heavenly Father, and suffered: this could only be 
effected by the Incarnation. This shows the enormity of sin, for 
which no man however pure, no, not even an angel, but only a God- 
Man could atone." 5:737. "The malice of sin is so exorbitant as not 
to be atoned and satisfied for, by the good works of all creatures : and, 
therefore, to pay this debt, it was necessary the Son of God should 
take from his veins, as a just price, the treasures of his divine blood." 
9:16. Now comes a quotation that, after I had read it, something 
made me exclaim, "That is a lie, a blasphemy, a sin, an offense against 
God to have such a conception of His character!!!" "So great is the 
enormity of one mortal sin, that God Himself had to become man, 
God Himself had to suffer and to die, in order to atone for its effects. 
All the labors, all the sufferings, and all the virtues of the saints would 
not have sufficed it \^ancel one single mortal sin. Had millions of the 
holiest souls endured, with incredible patience and constancy, tor- 
ments more acute than the fire of hell, in order to blot out one mortal 
sin, they would not have been able to expiate it. Nay, had the whole 
universe been drowned in the blood of human victims, no sin would 
thereby have been blotted out and forgiven. God could not be 
appeased except by the shedding of the Blood divine, by the death of 
His only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 7:78. 
Should I be damned for being a "regular heretic for denouncing this 
as a most damnable blasphemy and lie, instead of believing it? If 
any human father acted in that manner he would not even be tried for 
murder, but would be incarcerated in an insane asylum, would he not? 
And is God insane, or is the foregoing conception of the Atonement a 
lie? If it is a lie, which you will have to admit, unless you believe 
God can at times act like an insane person, a mad-mau, then what 
becomes of the Atonement? Supposing a man had a lot of adopted 



47 

children and an only son, who was well beloved by the father. Now, 
these adopted children had done something to incur the disiDleasure of 
this man so that "all the labors" and the blood of all the adopted 
children, and even his best friend,^ — "an angel" — could not appease 
him, but only the death, the shedding of the blood of his only beloved 
son would satisfy him. What would be your opinion of such a father 
who did that? Would you not say it was an insane and reprehensible 
act? 

What is the difPerence in the two acts, the one I pictured of the 
human father, and the one pictured by the priest of our Heavenly 
Father? Do you not think it is about time some one, even though it 
be a "regular heretic" who attempts it, should vindicate and exonerate 
God from the slanders, calumnies, and blasj)hemies of some of the 
teachings of the Catholic Church? Do, or do not, their teachings 
about an eternal hell and the Atonement degrade Grod's character to 
the level of that of the inhuman brute whose cruel hand must be 
stayed from inflicting unreasonable and vindictive punishment, by the 
Humane Society ? Who would descend to the level of a mad-man, a 
monster of iniquity, who could not be satisfied with anything except 
the killing of his own son, because of an offense committed by his 
adopted children. It is really too monstrously blasphemous to let 
such an aspersion of God's character go unchallenged. 

That is why I have taken up the gauntlet and dare to be "presump- 
tious" enough to go against the "wisdom and learning" of eighteen 
hundred years of the Catholic Church. On Sunday, August 25, 1901, 
the priest said, in part, in his sermon: "It would be presumptious 
for any one to put cue's ignorance against the wisdom and learning of 
eighteen hundred years of the Church; to criticise her rules and 
government; or that she could be prevailed upon to change one i-o-ta 
in anything." We may see, then, that neither of the three views of 
the Atonement, so far examined, is tenable. We will now see what is 
the non-Catholic view of the Atonement. In a book called "Univer- 
salism Aginst Itself," in which the author attacks the teachings of the 
Universalists, he has this to say on the doctrine of the Atonement: 
"The true doctrine is this, as the Scriptures clearly and abundantly 
teach, that Christ as a daysman, suffered only enough to make a recon- 
ciliation possible and make it just for God to forgive the sinner, and 
thus shield him from his deserved punishment. The apostle declares : 
(here he quotes Rom. 3:25, 26). Hence God could not, without violating 



48 

his justice, have pardoned the sins of one of Adam"s race had not 
Christ suffered for our sins — the just for the unjust. Thus Christ 
having suffered enough and only enough to bring man within the 
reach of God's mercy that he might be just and at the same time 
deliver the sinner from the punishment which his sins justly deserved, 
upon the condition of submitting to the terms of pardon, makes the 
debt of gratitude for this great salvation due from the sinner equally 
to God and to Christ. God was willing to save the sinner from the 
punishment due on account of his sins, provided the sinner was willing 
to 'be saved, yet he could not do it without violating his immutable 
justice, unless Christ, as an infinite sin-offering, should voluntarily 
suffer in our stead enough that mercy might reach us and the justice 
of God be sustained. This must be regarded as sound Scriptural 
doctrine." 33:183. This is a mixture of the three theories, already 
viewed, of the Catholic theologians, with an interwoven theory of 
substitutionary suffering — "the just for the unjust." 

As I believe I have, if words have the meaning we ascribe to 
them, already shown that the Catholic view of the Atonement is un- 
tenable, I will not thresh over all the old straw, but will examine subs- 
titutionary suffering to see what it looks like. In March , I 

attended one evening a Baptist revival meeting — although I do not 
see that the church since has had to make use of the sign "standing 
room only," as a result of his labors — at which the revivalist gave a 
short exposition of the doctrines of the Baptist Church. In the main 
they are about like those of the Catholic Church — if we cut out the 
"human creations" of devotions and practices introduced into the 
church centuries after the days of Jesus and the Apostles, which 
shows that the church makes a misrepresentation when she says she 
does not teach anything not taught by the Apostles — and when he 
spoke of the Atonement he gave a few illustrations to show what "sub- 
stitutionary" suffering meant. He said: "Christ suffered for us that 
we might be saved, just like the Irishman did who had both of his 
limbs cut off by jumping in front of a thundering, fast approaching 
locomotive and saving the life of a child that was a stranger to him. 
You see then that others may suffer for us that we may live." Do 
you see the weak point in this illustration? Is God an unconscious, 
feelingless, fiend-eyed, fire-spouting, gritting-teethed, rip-snorting 
nostrilled, "thundering" Being, that He would bear down to destruc- 
tion the human race had Jesus not, like the Irishman — who suffered 



49 

for it for saving the child — interposed Himself and saved us, and suf- 
fered for doing so? Was it Grod, then, through His agents — Judas 
and the Jews — who inflicted the sufferings on Jesus, just as the loco- 
motive inflicted the suffering on the good Irishman ? It is this view 
of the Atonement that has brought forth the following: "But the 
very fact that these prominent agents of God are universally detested, 
is conclusive evidence that the work which they performed is equally 
detestable also. It is, in fact, the detestable nature, the nefarious ef- 
fect of their work which brings universal condemnation upon them. 
If Judas had betrayed Jesus to a beautiful supper at a pious friend's 
house, or to a seat in the synagogue or the sanhedrin, as one whose 
words were wise, Christians would bless, instead of hating and cursing 
him. But how much more ought they to bless him because he be- 
trayed Jesus to crucifixion in order to save the whole world from 
death ! And yet it is the fate of Jesus, as the result of Judas' betrayal, 
that damns Judas, while, by the very doctrine under discussion, this 
very fate of Jesus is the grand result sought by God, and aimed at in 
this 'great plan of redemption.' I repeat it, it is the unnatural, the 
monstrous, the criminal,' the bloody, murderous effect or end of their 
work, which damns Judas and the priests; and yet this very end is 
God-ordained, and these persons are only God-predetermined, fore- 
chosen agents in the accomplishment of this very effect. Christians 
damn the unconscious agents of God for executing His plan, and 
bless God, the great designer, for its effects. Now, by what rule shall 
we curse agents who perform their part, and without whose perfor- 
mance the plan fails, while we exculpate the great planner himself, 
who got up the plan, and in whose hand these agents are only tools 
manufactured by the great designer himself for this very end? If the 
conception of killing God be holy, the killing of Him must be equally 
holy also. If it be necessary to crucify God to save man, it is equally 
necessary that somebody should do it; and if God got up the scheme 
and chose His own executioners — made them, in fact — who is to blame 
but himself?" 34:105. In another place the same author has more 
to say that is equally to the point. "But, let me ask, is God such a 
bloody monster as to be pleased to save guilty wretches because a few 
hireling high-priests, of (blasphemous assumption!) His own chosen 
people butchered an innocent reformer? Now this is just the pith of 
the doctrine. I well know what are the miserable apologies made to 
this objection by priests and churchians. They tell us that Jesus 



50 

voluntarily offered himself as a propitation for the sins of the world" 
Suppose he did, what must be the character of a God that could ac- 
cept the sacrifice? None but a Grod of the lowest appetites and of the 
grossest passions — su.ch an one as is found in the Mosaic mythology, 
bending with delighted nostrils over the stench and greasy effluvia of 
burning goats and bulls, — could accept such a sacrifice. 

What relation is there between the sufferings and cruel death of 
the gentle Jesus, and the sin of Eve's eating an apjjle four thousand 
years before ? Or what relation is there between the sins of the whole 
world, and Hisjsufferings and ,death? We are taught in the Bible, 
that the sins of the world may be, or rather are, expiated by Jesus' 
personal sufPeriiags and crucifixion. Now, let me ask, by what attri- 
bute of Divinity, or by what law of Justice, or by what principle of 
Natvire, can such a sentiment find support? It is clearly a gratuitous 
mythological assumption, without a single jot of justice. The sins of 
the whole race forgiven — expiated — blotted out in the blood of a 
murdered reformer!! It is awful. And then to be held by the Bible 
and the creeds that this same Jesus is God himself — the 'very and 
eternal Father, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,' 
makes God both a liar and suicide; for the Bible tells us that God 
said to Adam and Eve : 'In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou — 
not I — shalt surely die;' and again, in another passage: 'The soul 
that sinneth, it — not God — shall surely die.' But the doctrine under 
consideration pei-fectly contradicts and nullifies both these passages, 
and then teaches us that God himself, instead of punishing guilty 
man, incarnates himself in flesh, on jjurpose to be hated, despised, per- 
secuted and murdered, in order to save man from the Divine wrath, 
and so prove God a liar. * * * Now, I defy any theologian, who 
accepts this doctrine, to escape this point." 34:101, 102. Some rath- 
er strong points in what he said, are there not? a. f. y. I will now 
give you a few quotations, and will let you a. f. y. whether or not the 
quotations just made are gross misrepresentations of facts. "Had not 
Christ died, the whole human race would have been eternally lost or 
else saved in their sins, for 'without shedding of blood there can be 
no remission.' (Heb. 9:22.)" 33:164. "Since the Redemption, or 
'new creation,' was to be effected by suffering (according to the Di- 
vine decree), the New Eve [the Blessed Virgin] had to suffer along 
with the New Adam," (35:136) [Christ.] "Question. Was the incar- 
nation necessary for our redemption? Yes; for as God, Christ could 



51 

not suffer; without an infinitely meritorious suffering a sufficient sat- 
isfaction could not have been rendered to God, had not the Son of 
Grod humiliated Himself before His Heavenly Father, and suffered: 
this could only be effected by the incarnation." 5:737. "Before the 
coming of Jesus Chfist the portals of Heaven were closed, and could 
be opened only by the merits of His Passion and Cross." 36:141. 
"Christ gave Himself voluntarily up to death, as said by Isaias; (53:7) 
but at the same time He was obliged to suffer, that the decree of His 
Father, and the prophecies might be fulfilled; that our redemption, 
which required the price of His death upon the cross, might be ef- 
fected." 5:334. "If Christ had not been persecuted' and crucified, he 
would not have worked out redemption for us." 37:128. "As the 
death of the Paschal lamb is a symbol of the redemption, by which 
the death penalty due from one is paid by the other, so the eating of 
it is a figure of the participation of pardon, acceptance and blessed- 
ness, consequent upon the atonement." 37:176. "Question. Why 
did Jesus die on the cross? For our sins, so that we would be for- 
given and go to Heaven." 38:618, July 25, 1900. "Question 12. 
Why did the Son of God become man? That He might be able to 
suffer and die for us; for as God He could neither suffer nor die." 
30:114. [I suppose a twelve year old child can understand how God, 
who is unchangeable, and the same "yesterday, today, and forever," 
can change Himself into man and still be God? I am too presumpt- 
uously ignorant and stupid to understand it. It is because it is a 
mystery, and in due time I will demolish this "mystery" of the Trin- 
ity also.] "The hour had, however, come when Jesus, according to 
the eternal decree of God, was to give Himself up voluntarily to death, 
and willed to be like a grain of wheat buried in the earth, that through 
the fruits of His death, that is, His merits, , the sinner might receive 
life." 5:262. Here it may be seen that God had decreed it from eter- 
nity that His "well-beloved Son" should suffer. Oh, what a good, 
kind, loving and compassionate Father that must be who decrees an 
"ignominious death and suffering" for His child! I am glad my 
human father had more consideration and sympathy for me than to 
even will me suffering, let alon^ decreeiiig it. 

When in my first years in business, and it was apparently joros- 
perous, people would ask me, on my visits home, how business was, 
and whether I thought I could make my living at it, I,\ypuld \vant to 
say something "sjmart" — for I was at the] ,ag,e, jtl^en, ;when young people 



52 

think they know it all, but when we get to be forty we awaken to the 
fact that we are quite ignorant yet, and that, we then made long-eared 
animals of ourselves, [You know afflicted people are supposed to main- 
tain a "cheerful disposition," so do not blame me should I get in a 
little '"funny" word occasionally.] so I would say, "I believe I can 
make my living at it, and if I cannot, why, I suppose I can then go to 
the poor-house." 

I made this sort of an answer, a few times, in the presence of my 
father, when my sister afterwards told me that my remarks about the 
"poor house" hurt father's feelings, for it made him think I was in 
earnest when I made them, and therefore^ might have an opinion of 
him as being an unconcerned, indifPerent and unfeeling father. She 
told me that father said he "would never let me go to the poor-house, 
if it was in his power to prevent it, so long as he lived." Now, do you 
not think it is an offense against God, and hurts His feelings to have 
such a — well, supply your own adjectives — blasphemous conception of 
His character and attributes as theologians would have us believe of 
Him ? A Grod who, instead of exercising His power to prevent the 
suffering and "ignominious" death on the cross of His "well beloved 
Son," but actually decrees it, would have a less noble character than a 
normal human father has. Will this still be your conception of Grod? 
If not, then does it not about appear to you that the Atonement, as 
outlined by theologians, is an error, a superstition, and a blasphemy? 
But I am not done with it yet. 

"Why did Christ so often foretell His passion to His disciples? 
Because He wanted to show how great was His desire to suffer for us, 
for we speak often of that which we crave." 5:148. "In his sermons 
during these days [just prior to the crucifixion] He strove especially 
to convince the Jewish priests, the Doctors if the Law and the Phari- 
sees, that He was really the Messiah, and that they would commit a 
terrible sin by putting Him to death." 5:277. How could it be a 
"terrible sin" for any one to put Jesus to death if He craved to "suffer 
for us, and if it was "according to the eternal decrees of God." Would 
you blame a man, whom you had told to turn out four-penny nails, 
with a machine that could be regulated so as to turn out any size 
desired, because he was not turning out forty-penny spikes? Would 
you blame a person for making it possible for you to suffer by per- 
forming a good act for a loved one, or for a friend? Is this not a 
contradiction ? I do not want you to think for a moment that I am 



53 

defending the acts of those who participated in the crucifixion of 
Jesus, but simply to show the contradictions and inconsistencies in 
what theologians teach. But if I wanted to do so I could easily find 
theological proof for it. "It is in accordance with the economy of 
Divine Providence that, whenever God designs any person for some 
important work, He bestows on that person the graces and dispositions 
necessary for faithfully discharging it." 31:197. If God saw it was 
an "important work," to have Jesus crucified, so that he made it an 
"eternal decree," can you, then, execrate Judas and the Jews if He 
designed them for such an "important work" by bestowing on them 
the "dispositions necessary for faithfully discharging it?" Either 
modify your view of the crucifixion as an Atonement, which was per- 
fected "according to the eternal decrees of God," or else let up on your 
execrations of those who participated in the crucifixion of Jesus, if 
such crucifixion was an "important work," and was "according to the 
eternal decrees of God." Is it irrational in me to take this stand in 
the matter? a. f. y. And is it not claimed that the "plan of salvation" 
involved the death of Christ? 

"The plan of salvation involved the death of Christ." 89:173. 
Now, the question is, Would redemption have miscarried if Christ had 
not been put to death, "according to the eternal decrees of God?" If 
it would have miscarried, then, why execrate those who made it possi- 
ble for it not to miscarry, and if it would not have miscarried then 
what becomes of the "eternal decrees of God that Christ should be 
put to death?. 

Another difficulty, eh? Well, I will in time solve these difficulties. 
How will you get around the following in your condemnation of those 
who crucified Christ? Q. 43. "What means 'God is all-powerful or 
almighty?' God is all-i)owerful means that he can do anything, and 
has only to will and the thing is done." 29:57. " 'The heart of man,' 
says Holy Writ, 'is in the hand of the Lord; He turns it whitherso- 
ever He wills.' " 7:308. Now, if God "has only to will and the thing 
is done," and "the heart of man" is in His hand so He can turn it 
"whithersoever He wills," then, why did He not exercise a providen- 
tial supervision over the hearts of the Jews, who crucified Christ, and 
softened them so they would not have had the heart to put Christ to 
an "ignominious" death and suffering on the cross? It will not do to 
say they had a free-will and could therefore do as they choosed to. 
The fact that God has "only to will and the thing is done," and that 



54 

the heart of man is in His hand to turn it "whithersoever He wills," 
shows either that the foregoing is not true, or else God is such an 
unfeeling, indifferent, and arbitrary Being, that if such characteristics 
were manifested by a human being we would call them most repre- 
hensible, would we not? And if "God speaks to the soul and enforces 
the message it utters," (40:43) did He speak to the soul of Judas to 
betray Jesus, and enforced the message so that he did it? "Oh," but 
it will be said, "that it was the devil who put it into the heart of 
Judas to betray Jesus." I question that for the same reason that 
there was no devil to put it into the heart of Lucifer, — the first 
so-called devil — to rebel against God. Who tempted Lucifer to rebel 
against God if he was the first devli, and if it is only through the 
devil that the first sin on earth was committed, and still are committed 
through his "machinations?" The doctrine of a personal devil, 
"whose envy has been the cause of all our woes," (41:108.) is another 
blasphemous one that I will demolish in another chapter. If this is 
true that "unless the Lord preserve the soul from sin, all her endeav- 
ors to avoid it will be fruitless," (7:503,) then how will you exculpate 
God from the blame of Judas' sin of betraj'^al, for not preserving him 
from it? 

In another chapter I will attempt to make it plain to you that, as 
God governs the universe by law, He has nothing to do with preserv- 
ing from, or with sending sin, poverty, or sickness, but that they are 
the results of uncontrolled passions and appetites, thoughtlessness, 
carelessness and selfishness of ourselves and of others. 

I have run off on a side-track so far that I nearly lost the thread 
of the subject under consideration, so that I will recall it again by 
quoting the following: 

"Why did Christ retain the five wounds even after the Resurrec- 
tion? * * * because His wounds are the most powerful interces- 
sors with the Heavenly Father." 5:335. "The Divine will smoothed 
out the furrows of the scourge, healed the piercing of the thorns, 
closed the wounds of the nails, and effaced from His Sacred Flesh all 
tokens of humiliation, save only the five Sacred Wounds in hands and 
feet, and side, which still remain, and in eternity will remain forevea, 
as the tokens of our redemption and the pledges of His everlasting 
love." 2:93, Sec. 3, "The Five Wounds which our Lord deigned to 
keep after His resurrection, is said by theologians to be our Lord's 
intercession, continually pleading with the Father." 14:155. Here is 



too 



a representation of God which makes Him appear so indifferent 
relentless, arbitrary, and hard-hearted, that He was not satisfied with 
one "ignominious"' death on the cross of His Son to move Him to 
mercy to forgive men, and "appease His wrath," but that He must 
"continually" be pleaded to with the Five Wounds of His Son, 
"into eternity," to move Him to pity, mercy, and pardon, because "His 
wounds are the most powerful intercessors" with Him. If a human 
father had committed such an infamous, insane, mad deed as requiring 
the death of his "well-beloved" son to "appease his wrath," he would, 
after he recovered his sanity, and it were attempted to remind him of 
it, exclaim, "For Heaven's sake do not remind me of that infamous, 
reprehensible act which I once committed!" Would he not? a. f. y. 
Yet here is a God who must be pleaded with "continually" by showing 
Him reminders of an infamous tragedy that was executed "according 
to the eternal decrees of Him!" And not alone by the "Five Wounds," 
but also perpetually by the Sacrifice of the Mass, which is a supposed 
reproduction of the tragedy on Calvary. One might exclaim, with the 
priest, "Great God!" what blasphemy is veiled under the garb of 
Catholic truth! 

Is it any wonder that Mr. Ingersoll should say that he "woulp 
never make a lecture at all without attacking this droctrine" (42:305) 
of the Atonement? Let us examine some more difficulties in connec- 
tion with the Crucifixion. Here is one of them: "The curse entailed 
on mankind by the sin of our first parents, and propagated to all 
human beings (Christ and the Blessed Virgin excepted), was also 
pronounced over the whole earth: 'Cursed be the earth for thy sake.' 
It was necessary that this curse should be taken away by the Saviour 
of mankind, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and so it was really banished by 
Him on the Cross." 43:603. Is that true? Has the curse of God, 
pronounced on man and woman in Gen. 3:16-19, been "really ban- 
ished?" If it has, how explain the sorrows and "pains of woman in 
labor," the "thorns and thistles," and the eating of bread "in the sweat 
of thy face," facts of the present day? I will now give another quota- 
tion which flatly contradicts it, that the curse has not been "really 
banished," and that life on earth is still a struggle for existence. "Life 
on earth is still a warfare, a struggle for existence, temporal and 
eternal. * * * It was so before Christ, as Job tells us, and it has 
not changed since; nay, if anything, the warfare is now more open, 
active and hostile. Though Prince of Peace, Christ could not put a 



56 

stop to hostilities; nor did He seek to do so. * * * He could not alter 
the nature of Satan, the declared enemy of our humanity." League 
Leaflet Dec. 4, 1901. What a contradiction of a lot of Catholic teach- 
ings may be found in her literature. 

First, "life on earth is still a warfare, a struggle for existence," 
yet the curse of God in Gen. 3:16-19 is supposed to be "really ban- 
ished" and the warfare is now "more open, active, and hostile." Then 
it says "Christ could not put a stoiD to hostilities; nor did He seek to 
do so," yet we are told that He came to "save His iDeople from their 
sins;" and lastly, that "He could not alter the nature of Satan," yet 
we are told that Gen. 3:15 is a promise that the Blessed Virgin would 
crush the serpent's — devil's — head. She has come and gone and yet 
the nature of Satan is not altered. We are even told in a foot-note to 
the Doway edition of the Bible, that Gen. 3:15 "the sense is the same: 
for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the ser- 
pent's head." My people hung up on the walls of my room a picture 
of the "Lady of Victory" with her right foot on the serpent's head, 
yet notwithstanding all this the devil goes about like a "roaring lion," 
and his nature is not altered. What sort of a devil is that who can 
have his head crushed, and can cause a warfare that is now "more 
open, active and hostile" than in the time "before Christ, as Job tells 
us?" He must be like the proverbial cat, with nine lives, if with a 
crushed head he is as alive and active as ever, and whose nature Christ 
"could not alter." He, indeed, must be a powerful being such as 
Paine said, "compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of 
surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and sov- 
ereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by coming 
down upon earth and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the shape of 
a man." 44:13. And now after he has done so, it seems the Lord's 
Passion has been a failure, so far as this world is concerned. "To 
look at it you would say that our dearest Lord's Passion had been a 
simple failure. So little is the face of the world, or the tone of the 
world, or the ways of the world changed." 11:353. No wonder. I 
suppose if you had your head "crushed" your nature would not be 
altered? How fortunate those persons would have been if they had 
had the tough heads the devil has, when they died from fractured 
skulls which were not even crushed. Jesus has had a varied mission 
to this earth, yet if one is to believe theological writers He has been a 
most dismal failure. 

The question may now be asked, if Jesus was not crucified to 



57 

"appease the wrath of an angry God," or to make ''satisfaction for all 
sins of all men," or as a price of redemption," or to "redeem us from 
the slavery of the devil," or as a "substitutionary sufferer that we may 
live," then, why was He crucified? Well, it is just because I believe 
I have discerned the true reason or cause for His crucifixion, that 
made me change my view on the Atonement, that has made me appear, 
no doubt, in the light of the old view of the Atonement, as a most 
sacriligious and heretical person, and to dare to put my "ignorance 
against the wisdom and learning of eighteen hundred years of the 
Church." I made the discovery through reading history, and through 
my own experience. If you are a Catholic you will probably say that 
one is not safe in placing too much reliance in historians; that they 
are, as a rule, i^rejudiced against the Catholic religion. Be that as it 
may, it must be admitted that if we want to know the inner history of 
any one we must go to that i^erson's nearest neighbors for it, or if it 
is a man, have him nominated for an office, of which we have had 
some striking illustrations. 

The ones who are directly interested in a thing are not likely to 
mention the derogatory side of it, hence we must seek for the source 
of our information in others. Experience and observation confirm 
this. I will give a few instances to confirm this. During the past 
few years items have appeared in the secular press that papers, which 
were concerned with its religion, did not mention. When a German 
bishop, a few years ago, excommunicated a whole congregation, or 
parish, which was mostly Irish, because it would not have a' certain 
German priest for a pastor, the seciilar press mentioned it, but a Cath- 
olic paper, on the opposite side of the river in the town in which this 
took place, did not mention it. When a priest, in a city of over thir- 
ty thousand inhabitants, sued an estate for seventy-five dollars for 
funeral services, reported in the daily press of 1901, a Catholic paper, 
that we received at the time, did not mention it, although it had a 
section in it devoted to "Items of Interest From Many Sees." Again, 
in a daily paper of this century, appeared this item: "Humiliated a 

Priest. The services stopped when the Rev. Father 

tried to worship." This took place in a city of considerably over one 
hundred thousand inhabitants. Yet the same Catholic paper, alluded 
to already, did not say a word about it, or about the priest's trouble 
with his bishop. In these instances it seems no correspondents of 
this Catholic paper were in those cities to rejiort these items, probably 



58 

because there was not enough of a population to justify having 
any there, but^it seems it thought it would justify having a correspon- 
dent out in the country districts, for here is fin item I saw in its col- 
umns, although I did not see it in any of the dailies. July 17, 1901. 

"H B , a farmer in B county, K , has been jilted by 

his fiancee because he used a $125 horse during his courting days and 
when he had secured the girl's consent he sold the animal and pur- 
chased one for $25. [Well, he ought to be jilted if he goes courting 
with a horse, instead of with an open, frank, manly, and noble mind 
and character. But then that is the way most of the courting is done 
now-a-days anyway, it is an endowment of worldly goods, principally, 
instead of mind and character that is sought after.] 

It may be seen, then, that at times we must go to others for our 
information, even though they may, or may not, be "prejudiced." 
And now as to my own experience, which has made me believe in the 
histories which I have read, among which were the Histories of the 
Reformation, of the Inquisition, of the Christian Church, of Christ- 
ianity, and the Ecclesiastical History. When I was bedridden, in the 
spring of 1899, and had been told that "materia medica" could do 
nothing for me — except bury its mistake, if I would let it do so — I 
wanted to give Christian Science another trial, although I had had 
ten different healers in Kansas City try to destroy my "belief" of 
rheumatism, and "kink in the back," as a Christian Science sympa- 
thizer qalled it, in which they were no more successful, however, than 
' they were in destroying in themselves the "belief" that I owed them 
money — matter, an illusion — for "demonstrations," and had to pay 
them just the same as one has to pay the doctor who has performed a 
"successful" operation, and in which the patient is buried within a 
week after it, or like in the case of a doctor, who sent the young widow 
a bill "for curing your husband until he died." I thought I had just 
as much right to try Christian Science healers of Atchison as my 
people had in having me try Atchison doctors, after Kansas City doc- 
tors had done me no good. I have, since my experience here with 
doctors, learned to know that they are just as good guessers, as to 
what ails a person, as those are in Kansas City. When I had decided, 
then, after the doctors here said they could do nothing for me, to give 
Christian Science another trial, I wrote a letter to one of the healers 
here to call to see me, giving it to my people to mail for me, telling 
them also of what I intended to do. This information disturbed the 



59 

minds of my people so they told the the priest about it. He came 
post haste to see me and we had quite an argument over it. I said to 
him, finally, that as I had gone so far into Christian Science I would 
go to the bottom of it to see what there was in it, and if I found noth- 
ing in it, why, I supposed it would not hurt me. He said, then, point 
blank that "The Church cannot permit it." When he was leaving me 
I told him I would try it again anyway. He said nothing more to me 
about it, but he must have given my people orders of some kind, for 
the next morning when the healer called to see me my sister would 
not let her into the house. The healer called for father, then, as I 
had instructed her in the letter to do in case she was refused admit- 
tance. Father went to the door and the healer told him she had come 
in response to my letter and that she wanted to see me. Well, father 
left her at the door and came to me, with tears in his eyes, saying that 
the healer was at the door and wanted to see me, but that he did not 
know what to do as the priest had strictly forbidden them to let her 
see me when she called, or to deliver any mail to me or for me that 
they might suspect had reference to Christian Science. Although I 
was bedridden, when I heard this my blood boiled with indignation to 
think that in this enlightened age and free country a priest — the chief 
pastor — would resort to such measures to keep Christian Science away 
from me, that I said to father: "Either let her in to see me or else 
put me out of the house!!" Well, he let her in to see me, and 
while she was ' talking to me, and after she had gone away, my j)eo- 
ple were so wrought up over it that they wept as though a funeral was 
to take place. The next morning the healer called again and was 
again refused admittance. I said to myself, then, that if my people 
take it so hard for me to have anything to do with Christian Science, 
I will for their sakes, and especially for mother — the one who always 
clings the longest and last to a wayward child — and whose soul I felt 
was already "pierced by the sword" in beholding my bodily affliction, 
without driving in another dagger on account of religion, as the soul 
of the Blessed Virgin was pierced on account of Jesus' attitude 
towards the Pharisacial religion of the Jews, — have nothing more to 
do with it so long as I was under the roof of their home. Besides, on 
the first day of the healer's call, after she had left, a Catholic visitor, 
■ who had learned what the trouble was, said rather loudly to my people 
that if a child of theirs would throw himself away to the dogs, mean- 
ing Christian Science, they would not go to his funeral should he die 



60 

on their hands, but that they could bury him like a dog — that is, 
without holy water and a requiem Mass, I suppose — or throw him into 
the river like a hog for all they cared. [That is Roman Catholicism 
for you.] So taking all this into consideration I consented to have 
nothing more to do with Christian Science, when the priest called 
to see me about it the next day. I agreed to have all of my Christian 
Science literature sent away, and in wanting to put the books out of 
my reach the priest wanted to take away the Bible also, saying: "You 
better give this up, too, for awhile, and read something else," but I 
told him my people would put the books away, and that he should 
leave the Bible where it was, which he then did. 

Now, have I not good reasons to believe historians when they say 
that the Catholic Church tried to keep the Bible from being read 
generally? and that she resorted to the secular arm to enforce her 
mandates against heretics and reformers? If the Church will resort 
to such means to enforce her orders in this enlightened age and free 
country, as she used in my case, what do you suppose she would not 
resort to to enforce her edicts where all is Catholic? And was not 
Europe largely Catholic before the Reformation? Can I help believ- 
ing history, then, which shows up the derogatory side of the Catholic 
Church? How do you suppose, then, she compelled the secular arm, 
which was Catholic mostly, to enforce her edicts against heretics and 
reformers? Why, by threats of excommunications, or refusing abso- 
lution, as she does to-day, to those who do not send their children, up 
to a certain age, to the Catholic schools. I know of cases where 
parents are refused absolution, on account of not sending their chil- 
dren to the Catholic school, who make trips to other cities for the 
reception of the Sacrament. When people are engrossed in their 
occupations for earning a living, they have no time to investigate 
and think for themselves in regard to religious matters. They can 
therefore be easily frightened into executing the laws against here- 
tics, — which the church has had enacted through her influence — by 
threatening them, for refusal, with excommunication, and refusal fo 
absolution of the "only saving faith," as they are taiight from child- 
hood to believe the Catholic faith is. This, no doubt, is the reason 
why my peojole so strictly obeyed the orders of the priest with regard 
to me. 

After this order of the priest, already mentioned was given to my 
people, and I wanted to write to a Christian Scientist in Atchison I 



61 

had to send the letter, under cover of an envelope addressed to a 
newspaper or some person in Kansas City, St. Louis, and even to New 
York, and if they wanted to write to me they would do the same. 
At another time an old acquaintance of boyhood days on the farm, 
came from another city to visit in this city and naturally wanted 
to see me. When he called to see me, he was told at the door, that if 
he did not talk Christian Science with me, — he himself being no 
Christian Scientist, but his wife was one, — he could see me. He told 
me about it afterwards. 

What things will people not do, especially Catholics, all on 
account of religion. I know of cases where Catholics would not even 
attend, in a Protestant Church, a funeral, or a wedding of a friend, or 
of a relative. A person would think that in this enlightened and 
civilized age such blindness, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness could 
not be found, yet there is more of it than a person would suspect. 
But I am glad to say that I have at least this compensation for my 
bitter cup of suffering and disappointment of my past few years, 
that the scales have dropped from my eyes, enabling me now to see 
things in a different light, and that I can no longer be "bumfoozled," 
as a lawyer spoke of his opponent's attempt on the jury, by threats of 
eternal damnation for being an apostate of the Catholic Church, 
whether the anathema should come from a Priest, Bishop, Cardinal or 
a Pope. I will risk my salvation any day on reason, intellect, and 
common sense, God-given faculties, rather than on blind, submissive, 
incomprehensible faith. Now, this very religion they were trying to 
shield me from, I finally discovered is no more according to Christ, 
notwithstanding its name, than is the Catholic religion, and if I had 
to choose between the two I believe I would choose the latter. Do 
you believe that if the Catholic Church were to write a history of her 
doings in Atchison that she would tell all about my experiences with 
her, as I have told you? Do you question any of the statements I 
have made with regard to the conduct of the Church toward me in the 
matter of Christian Science ? What would I gain by making misrep- 
resentations about Catholicism, Christian Science, Materia Medica, or 
anything else that is of vital concern to mankind? Nothing whatever; 
and if I want to accomplish my object, of bringing about Christian 
unity, I must tell nothing but the truth, and this is what I intend to 
tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Now, if you believe me in 
what I have said about my experiences with the Church, when I was 



62 

bedridden, and it was believed I would never get off the bed again 
alive, then must you not believe v.-hat historians have said about the 
way Calvin caused the burning of Servetus, and the Catholic Church 
of the burning of Huss, Savonarola, and others, and would have 
burned Luther if it could have gotten a hold of him? And why were 
some of them burned at the stake? Was it not because they de- 
nounced the lax morals in the priests in some localities, and the 
corruptions of the Church? Even Catholic writers admit this to have 
been a fact before the Reformation. "It cannot be denied that cor- 
ruption of morals prevailed in the sixteenth century to such an extent 
as to call for a sweeping reformation, and that laxity of discipline 
invaded even the sanctuary." * * * What was the Council of 
Trent but a great reforming tribunal? Most of its decrees are directed 
to the reformation of abuses among the clergy and the laity." 31:47. 
It, [reformation] was no doubt particularly needed when Luther set 
about his self-imposed task." 45:357. When we read, then, that "John 
Huss' impassioned condemnation of the iniquitous sale of indulgences 
called down on him the papal excommunication," (46:275,) have we 
not reasons for believing it? and especially if a Catholic writer says 
of him that "he was a seditious priest, of Progue, who commenced 
reformer in Bohemia, as Luther did afterwards in Germany?" 47:56. 
And what started Luther a "reformer" but his attack on the sale of 
indulgences? Here it is from a Catholic writer. "I will not deny 
that Indulgences have been abused; but are not the most sacred 
things liable to be perverted? This is a proper place to refer briefly 
to the Bull of Pope Leo X. proclaiming the Indulgence which afforded 
Luther a pretext for his apostasy. Leo determined to bring to 
completion the magnificent church of St. Peter, commenced by his 
predecessor Julius II. With that view he issued a Bull promulgating 
an Indulgence to such as would contribute some voluntary offering 
toward the erection of the grand cathedral." 31:434. As I will devote 
a separate chapter to Indulgences I will not touch on this now. Now, 
if it is asked why John Huss was burned for the same offense against 
the Church which Luther committed, but for which Luther was not 
burned, it must be said because the community in which Huss lived, 
and Europe at the time, was more Catholic than that of Luther's. 
Luther (15:89) would have met the same fate of Huss and Savonarola 
had he not had the protection of some German princes, a protec- 
tion which the other two did not have. This is the conviction and 



63 

conclusion any impartial reader of history must come to, when taking 
into consideration the different states of thought, and the different 
surroundings in which Luther and Huss lived. Well, then, if the 
further back we go we find that the mode of dealing with "heretics" 
was more severe and different from what it is now, we must come to 
the conclusion that at the time of Jesus' sojourn on earth the persecu- 
tion of heretics was by death on the cross, for crucifixion was then the 
mode of punishment for heretics and "seditious" persons, and was not 
Jesus regarded as a "heretic" and "seditious" person by the Jewish 
priesthood, whose corruptions and hypocrisies He attacked and de- 
nounced, and because he taught a different view of what sei-ving God 
meant from that of theirs? And were not the surroundings of Jesus 
strongly Jewish? Well, do you now perceive the reason or answer 
"Why was Jesus crucified," if He was not crucified to "appease the 
wrath of an angry God," or to make "satisfaction for all sins of all 
men," or as a "price of redemption," or to "redeem us from the slavery 
of the devil," or as a "substitutionary sufferer that we may live?" Is 
it plain and comprehensible to you now "Why was Jesus crucified?" 
And did not the high-priest say that Jesus "hath sj)oken blasphemy," 
when he said: "Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at 
the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of 
Heaven?" Matt. 26:64-65. And did not Moses give the Jews a law 
to put to death "he that blasphemeth ?" Lev. 24:16. And when Paul 
preached Christ was he not apprehended as a heretic? For could he 
otherwise have said: "But this I confess to thee, that occording to 
the sect which they call heresy, so I serve the Father and my God," 
(Acts 24:14,) if he had not been accused of being a heretic? And 
had not forty Jews, before Paul appeared before Felix the governor, 
"bound themselves under a curse, saying: that they would neither eat 
nor drink till they had killed Paul?" Acts 23:12. And they would have 
done so had Paul not been sent, at "the third hour of the night" (Acts 
23:23) by the tribune to Felix the governor. It may be seen, then, that 
Jesus was regarded by the Jewish priesthood as a blasphemer, heretic, 
and a seditious person, and as they believed they were the preservers 
of the people from so-called impostors and teachers of false religions 
— just as the Catholic Church did for centuries believe she was the 
guardian of the prople's beliefs, and would preserve them from "heret- 
ical" and "seditious" priests and reformers, by burning them at the 
stake, casting them into j)risons, etc., — they believed it their duty to 



64 

romove all such persons, and as crucifixion was the mode for doing 
this, at that time, they caused Jesus' removal by having him crucified. 

Now, when I made this discovery, that Jesus was crucified for the 
reasons given here, I underwent a complete revolution of my view of 
the Atonement. It completely destroyed the Atonement as a doctrine 
of faith for me, and has made it appear to me as a species of error, 
superstition and blasphemy. And if my reason and understanding, or 
intellect, have led me to this conviction and conclusion, and it is not 
the truth, then I do not see how God can escape impeachment for 
endowing me with faculties that have led me into error, by making 
use of them. And are we not to use them? Have we not Bible war- 
rant for asking for wisdom and understanding? "The Lord will give 
thee in all things understanding." 2 Tim. 2:7. "If any of you want 
wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and 
upbraids th not; and it shall be given him." Jas. 1:5. And is this 
not what I have daily been asking for in my prayer, already men- 
tioned? And is this the way God answers it by leading me into error 
with the very things for which I have asked, if the conclusions and 
convictions I have arrived at through them are not the truth ? And if 
it is said that it was the devil who led me into error, after praying to 
God to reveal to me the truth, then what becomes of the doctrines of 
prayer and the preservation from the onslaughts of the devil by our 
so-called guardian angels? Is the devil more powerful, and more 
anxious to ruin us, than is the guardian angel to save us, and can 
therefore override the protection the guardian angel would give us? 
What does a guardian mean? Is it not like one who has been placed 
over a child to watch and protect it from being destroyed or run over 
by dogs, horses, street cars, etc., even though the child should want to 
run after them and away from its guardian ? 

A priest once, in his sermon, gave an illustration on the provi- 
dence of God over us by saying: "As a mother watches over her 
child who is playing near a river bank so that it will not get so close 
as to fall into it with the caving earth, so likewise God protects us 
from going to destruction when we would rush into danger." Is 
that true, if the devil has led me into error, if in error I now am? 
And if the guardian angel, a friend of God and man, has more power 
than the devil, the enemy of God, and is not indifferent about our 
destiny, and is as anxious to save us as the devil is to destroy us, can 
it then be said that it was the devil who led me into error, if in error 



«5 

I am now, after praying to God to reveal the truth to me ? It will not 
do to say that it is because I am an apostate of the Catholic faith that 
my prayer has been ignored, and I was, therefore, given over to the 
devil, for I was not yet an apostate to the Catholic faith when doubts 
arose in my mind as to the truth of the teachings of the Catholic 
Church on the doctrine of eternal damnation, which was the entering 
wedge to further doubts, as already stated, in my mind, and when this 
doubt first arose in my mind I prayed, saying: "O God, reveal to me 
the truth," instead of doing as the priest told me to do under those cir- 
cumstances, and that was to say: "My God, I believe!" which would 
have been a lie had I said that. One can not doubt a thing and at the 
same time say: "I believe it," without telling a lie, can one? Well 
then if I have established my right to, and am justified in using my 
understanding in trying to arrive at a conviction have I not the same 
right then to use the faculty of reason also in connection with it? 
Do not theologians say we have a right to use it? See what they say 
about it. "Man's reason is a gift of God, and God requires him to ex- 
ercise and use it, and not throw it away. And he will one day ask 
him to give a strict account of the use he has made of it." 39:57. 
Has the Catholic Church made use of reason and common-sense when 
she tells us that "so great is the enormity of one mortal sin, that * 
* * God could not be appeased except by the shedding of the Blood 
divine, by the death of His only begotten Son," that for a sin of a 
moment, unrepented of, one must suffer "the pains of eternity," and 
that God, at the cry of the damned for annihilation, "is deaf to their 
cries," yet one can, in confession, "by one act of obedience and humil- 
ity" cancel "a whole life of iniquity and rebellion?" a. f. y. 7:78, 241, 
266, 393. "Reason is not ruled out by revelation. You may, you 
must, be required to believe much which reason could not have dis- 
covered for itself; but you are not required to believe anything that is 
contrary to reason. You are never in religion to act irrationally, that 
is, without or contrary to reason. That were sheer madness and 
mockery of God!" 48:158. Is that not a mockery of God to say that 
Christ redeemed us "from the slavery of the devil" (30:117) yet the 
devil gets all of ninety thousand souls excepting eight? a. f. y. 7:337. 
When during the Reformation, in the controversy with Zwingle 
and his followers over Transubstantiation, Luther, in defending it, 
said: "I reject reason, common sense, carnal arguments, and mathe- 
matical proofs," (15:485) did he, or did he not, act "irrational," and in 



66 

"sheer madness and mockery of God," and stultify his intellect when 
he said that? a. f. y. Yet it is the intellect, "carnal argument," with 
which I will demolish the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and with 
"mathematical proofs" that I will do the same to what non-Catholics 
call "Mariolatry" — the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. 

Well, then, if the reason and the understanding convince me that 
Jesus was crucified, not for the reasons given by theologians, which I 
have mentioned a number of times, but because He j)reached against 
the "corruptions and avarice of the Jewish Priests," which "brought 
ou Him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of the priest- 
hood;" (44:10) for denouncing "formalists who held rigidly to the 
letter of the law," and who added "observance to obseiwance and rule 
to rule;" (40:12) "for teaching doctrines which were heretical to those 
which Grod's own chosen priesthood had been taught to regard as 
divine and infallible, and that, too, by the whole Old Testament; and 
was crucified by these very priests who, according to the Old Testa- 
ment, were the God-appointed expounders of His word;" for hating 
"Jesus because He" did away "with some of the most cherished 
dogmas of Judaism;" (34:103) — as for instance, "I will have mercy, 
and not sacrifice" (Matt. 12:7) — and, finally, because He was regarded 
as only a "wine bibber, a gluttonous man, a friend of publicans and 
sinners, a Sabbath-breaker, a blasphemer," (37:360) must I then be- 
lieve it? And did the Jews not have a law (Lev. 24:16) that blas- 
phemers should be put to death? If, then, my solution is correct — 
because it appeals to the reason and understanding — why Jesus was 
crucified, what becomes of the doctrine of the Atonement? Does it 
not turn out, what I said it would, a species of error, blindness, super- 
stition and blasphemy? a. f. y. I will now give you the same illustra-, 
tion, which I have already used, but in a different light to bring it 
nearer home to you, why was Jesus crucified, if not for the reasons 
given by theologians, but for the reasons which I gave. Supposing 
this man, whose adopted children were leading such a wayward, cor- 
rupt, drunken, and quarrelsome lives that if they did not change or 
reform themselves they would eventually all go to ruin, perish, he, 
out of love and sympathy for them, sends his only son to them to 
exhort, admonish, and persuade them to try to lead different lives, 
but they would have none of his, or have him as a peace-maker, and 
woiild treat him as peace-makers are often treated uow-a-days, that is, 
by killing him. That is just the reason God sent Jesus to His children 



67 

on earth and is just why He was treated as He was, as the son in 
my illustration was treated, that is, put to death, because they did not 
want his reforms. Is this not, then, a jDlain, reasonable, and compre- 
hensible solution, such as I have given of it, of why was Jesus cruci- 
fied? And is this not in strict accord with "Grod so loved the world, 
as to give His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, 
may not perish, but may have life everlasting?" John 3:16. The 
following is also in concord with it: "In this is charity: not as 
though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us, and 
sent His Son to be a propitation for our sins." 1 John 4:10. This 
"propitation for our sins" was not to win over, or gain by favor, Grod's 
mercy or forgiveness of sin, or to apj)ease His anger, for as it says, 
"He hath first loved us," and when we love anyone it is not a propiti- 
ation, conciliation, of us to the one we love, but of the one we love to 
us. It is in the wrong interpretation ijlaced on the word "^propitia- 
tion," conciliation, — which is to win over the one we love — that all the 
error has arisen about "satisfaction" to God for sin. The parable of 
The Prodigal Son completely vitiates any such theory of th^ Atone- 
ment as is that of it of the theologians, and it is in full accord with 
my view of it. It was God's love for free-will mankind that was going 
to ruin, perishing, from false theories of what constitutes an "abun- 
dant life" that Jesus was sent, and in giving -His life for a redemption 
of many it does not mean redemption from the curse of God, nor of 
the slavery of the devil, but from their depraved, slavish, and corrupt 
appetites, passions and false ideals of what constitutes a healthy, joy- 
ous, and peaceful life. Those who accepted Jesus were redeemed, 
then, in the manner just mentioned, and they would have been 
redeemed, if they accepted the teaching of Jesus and practiced them, 
just the same whether Jesus had been crucified or not. With this 
explanation of what redemption means these passages then become 
plain and comprehensible. "Even as the Son of Man is not come to 
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a redemption 
for many." Matt. 20:28. "Who gave Himself for us, that He might 
redeem us from all iniquity, (not the curse of God, nor the slavery of 
the devil) and might cleanse to Himself a people acceptable, a pursuer 
of good works." Titus 2:14. 

Probably the most difl&cult passage to get around in attempting to 
destroy the doctrine of the Atonement and Redemption, in the theo- 
logical sense^ is this one : "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 



68 

of the law, being made a curse for us." Gal. 3:13. But if we read 
verse eleven of the same chapter the difficulty is removed if we substi- 
tute the word "principle" for the word "faith." "But that in the law 
no man is justified with God, it is manifest: because the just man 
liveth by faith." A man who is honest, sober, moral, etc., only 
because it is the best policy, and thereby escapes the laws against 
their violation — which are in one sense a curse to him, he having 
been made virtuous by an act of Parliament, or by the fear of an effi- 
cient police force — and is not virtuous because of faith in God — prin- 
ciple — is not "justified with God," is he? He is like some Catholic 
saints who were virtuous because their fear of hell was such an 
"eflPectual bridle" to the "inordinate passions." 11:254. Now, this is 
just the curse Jesus came to redeem us from, by teaching us to do 
right — be just — according to faith — principle — and when we can do 
this then we are redeemed from "the curse of the law," and it can be 
said "the just man liveth by faith" Is this plain to you now? If it 
is, is not then the doctrine of the Atonement completely demolished? 
I will close this chapter by quoting and commenting on the following 
passages: "For every one shall bear his own burden. * * * Be 
not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow 
those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh 
also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the 
spirit shall reap life everlasting." Gal. 6:5, 7, 8. It does not say, 
"For every one shall bear his own burden, unless he accepts the ready 
pardon Jesus perfected by His death on the cross," does it? Nor 
does it say: "For what things a man shall sow, these also shall he 
reap, provided he does not accept the ready pardon provided by the 
crucifixion of Jesus; for in that case he will not reap what he sows, 
but may then sow in the flesh and reap of the spirit," does it? Well, 
then, is there a single vestige left of the doctrine of the Atonement, 
either according to reason and understanding, or according to Scrip- 
ture, and have you not now a nobler conception of God's character 
than you had of Him before reading this book so far as to here ? a. f . 
y. I will try to make you have a still more nobler conception of Him 
after the doctrines of a devil,— -whose envy is the "cause of all our 
woes," (41:108) — and of Original Sin, have been demolished. 

The next subject we will consider or examine, and which will 
principally concern only the Catholic Church, will be that cf the 
Sacrifice of the Altar, or Holy Mass, with its accompanying doctrines 
of Transubstantiation — the Real Presence, — and the Eucharist. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE MASS. 

It seems it is almost superfluous to devote any time and space to 
a subject, whose foundation stones rest on the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment, and which in the previous chapter I have demolished with the 
"arms of the intellect.^' But as I stated in the preface that I would 
rather have ninety -nine points to spare than to fall short one of accom- 
plishing my object, I will devote some time and si^ace to the subject 
of the Holly Mass, in order to so pulverize it that its atoms of remains 
can not be gathered together again forever. With the Mass, and its 
concomitants, out of the way, one more so-called impenetrable barrier 
to a union between the Catholic Church and the "separated brethren," 
will be removed. As the Mass is regarded by Catholics as the '"center 
of the Catholic religion," (49:34,) the "acknowledged institution of 
Jesus Christ," (31:359,) the "sun of the Catholic Church," (7:145,) 
and where there is no Mass "there is also no Christianity," (49:7,) the 
subject can not very well be put aside without a thorough examination 
and an unsparing analysis of it. The reason the Mass is held as 
being of such great excellence, is because it is looked upon by the 
Church as a sacrifice "identical with that ofPered on the cross of 
Calvary," (49:36,) nor at all "distinct from it," and "identical with it 
* * * having the same victim and High Priest — Jesus Christ," 
(31:35(5,) and in which He offers Himself "for the same reasons for 
which He offered Himself on the cross" (13:71; that it is a "Sacrifice 
of Propitiation for our many off'enses against" (28:847) God, and that 
by it, if "with sincere heart and right faith we approach penitently to 
God, 'even great sins are forgiven.' " 51:13. 

As I have demolished the doctrine of the Atonement, in the pre- 
vious chapter, it may be seen, then, from the foregoing quotations, 
the Mass, resting on the Atonement, has no more worth, or would be 
any more pleasing to God than would be representations of the 
crucifixion of Sts. Peter and Paul, or of the burning at the stake of 



70 

Huss, Savonarola, and Servetus, or of the beheading of Sir Thomas 
Moore and Mary, Queen of Scots, or of the killing of the Salem 
witches, or of the painting and tarring and feathering of Dowie elders. 
But even granting that the Atonement had been entirely ignored in 
the matter, the Mass otherwise cannot stand the test of a searching 
analysis. After the sacrificial nature, or view, of the Mass is elimi- 
nated one remaining fundamental in it is Transubstantiation. If this 
doctrine of Transubstantiation can be successfully undermined then 
the whole superstructure of the Mass, and its concomitants, must 
collapse. This I will now attempt to do. It was after I read "How 
long does Christ remain present with His Sacred Flesh and Blood? 
As long as the appearances of bread and wine continue to exist," 
(30:260,) that I asked myself a question which was just one too many 
for the good of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It was this "What 
becomes of Christ — God — after the bread and wine have disappeared, 
— no longer exist?" An innocent question, but it cannot be answered 
without involving the doctrine of Transubstantiation. But two an- 
swers can be given to this question, neither of which can stand the 
test of the intellect. One is, that Christ — God — leaves us again whole 
and entire, after receiving Him in Communion, and the apjJearances 
of bread and wine no longer exist. The other is, that He is absorbed 
to annihilation by the soul of man. just as the body assimilates — 
annihilates — the food that is properly taken into a healthy stomach. 
I will first give some quotations to show that the Church teaches that 
Christ, yea, even the Trinity, is contained in the Eucharist, before I 
will analyze the first answer "that Christ — God — leaves us again whole 
and entire, after receiving Him in Communion, and the appearances 
of bread and wine no longer exist.*' "Why does the priest raise the 
bread and the chalice to the view of the people? The priest lifts up 
the host, and then the chalice with the precious blood, in order that 
the faithful may see it and adore the Saviour now present under the 
forms of bread and wine." 52:72. "In the Holy Eucharist do we 
receive Jesus Christ Himself whole and entire? A. Yes; we receive 
Jesus Christ Himself whole and entire." 13:65. "With eyes trem- 
blingly raised to the great White Throne, the priest holds up before 
God this earthly bread, that in a few moments he, a creature made of 
earthly dust, is, by the power given him from on high, going to change 
into the food of angels, — nay, into the very celestial God himself." 
51 :30. "Bread that comes from the clay of the earth going to be 



71 

changed [at Transubstantiation ] into 'the true God of true God, the 
true Light of true light.' '■' 51:41. "We are to adore the Most Holy 
Trinity in the Blessed Eucharist." 11:273. "The Ecumenical Coun- 
cil of Trent expressly declares: * * * 'if any one denies that the 
Holy Eucharist truly, really and substantially contains the Body and 
Blood, the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore the 
whole Christ, and asserts that it is only a sign or figure without virtue, 
let him be anathema.' " 5:423. "Our Lord Himself has rested upon 
your tongue in Holy Communion." 53: Aug. 22, 1900. It may be 
seen, then, from these quotations, that the Eucharist is held by the 
Catholic Church as the Saviour, Jesus Christ, celestial God, God of 
true God, the Most Holy Trinity, and Our Lord. 

We will now analyze the first answer to the question of, "what 
becomes of Christ — God — after the bread and wine have disappeared, 
— no longer exist?" This we said was that "Christ — God — leaves us 
again whole and entire, after having received Him in Commimion 
and the appearances of bread and wine no longer exist." We must 
admit that if Christ is 100 per cent substance when received in Com- 
munion, He must, when the appearance of bread and wine no longer 
exist, and He leaves us again whole and entire, take 100 per cent of 
substance with Him, must He not? It will hardly be admitted that 
the soul of man can extract substance from the soul of Christ — God — 
so as to make him any less than a Christ of 100 per cent substance, for 
that would make man as powerful over Christ as the healthy stomach 
is over the food taken into it. Now, we may ask, how is the soul 
nourished if it has not extracted any substance from Christ — God — 
while He was present, at the most, "fifteen minutes" (6:339) under 
the appearances of bread or wine, and has left us again "whole and 
entire," 100 per cent substance? Would a sick body be nourished by 
a glass of milk taken into the stomach, which was almost immediately, 
after having taken into it, vomited out again "whole and entire?" It 
may be seen, then, that the first answer to the question of "what 
becomes of Christ — God — after the bread and wine have disappeared, 
no longer exist," is not tenable, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, if 
the soul is to be nourished at all by Communion, the literal eating of 
the Eucharist. 

I will now give some quotations to show that Christ — God — must 
be absorbed to annihilation, assimilated, just as food is by the stom- 
ach of the body — else, why daily communion by the priests? — before 



72 

examining the other answer that "He is absorbed to annihilation by 
the soul of man, just as the body assimilates — annihilates — the food 
that is properly taken into a healthy stomach." 

"You can say with truth, especially after having received Holy 
Communion, that the blood of a God flow in your veins." 7:88. 
How can the "blood of a God" flow in one's veins unless He has been 
assimilated? "My soul, thou art about to feed [in Communion] upon 
the blessed body of Jesus. And hast thou well considered what thou 
art, and who God is?" 49:217. What does it mean to "feed upon" a 
thing imless it means to assimilate it? Does it not here say plainly 
"feed upon the blessed body of Jesus?" It does not say that one is 
to imbibe His words — which is the real "Bread of Life" — and assim- 
ilate them, but the literal eating of Jesus' body, and what can that be 
but assimilation — annihilation — of Jesus — God? "In a Recent num- 
ber of the Senthiel, [of the Blessed Sacrament] the writer dwells upon 
the joy of spirit which is one of the fruits of frequent and worthy 
Communion. He tells us how the soul that has once tasted the 
sweetness of the Lord is no longer satisfied with lesser good. He 
closes with an appeal to souls to come frequently to Communion in 
order to know their Lord truly." 53: April 23,1902. After I had 
read that, and received Communion, I took particular notice to see 
how the "sweetness of the Lord" tasted when I fed on His body, and 
His blood was to flow through my veins. Well, one time He tasted as 
though He had not been baked quite enough — a little soggy — and at 
another time He was pretty strongly seasoned with salt, presumably 
to make me one of "ye are the salt of the earth." Matt. 5:13. How 
can one taste the sweetness of a thing without assimilating it? How; 
then, can one taste the "sweetness of the Lord" without assimilating 
Him, if it is through receiving Him in Communion that this is done, 
and we feed on his body, and His blood then flows in our veins? 
"Holy Communion * * * is for Catholics practically necessary 
for the novirishment of the soul, for the extirpation of vicious habits 
and the formation of solid virtue, and for perseverance to the end." 
45:195. Now, how is it possible to nourish the soul so it can extirpate 
"vicious habits," and can form "solid virtue," and to persevere unless 
the soul has extracted substance from the assimilation of Christ — 
God? For if the soul has not extracted any substance from Christ, 
while the appearance of bread and wine yet remained, and Christ left 
again "whole and entire" — 100 per cent substance — when the forms 



73 

of bread and wiue disappeared, then how is it nourished? It may be 
seen, then, that the only way the soul can receive any enduring nour- 
ishment from Communion would be for it to assimilate, which means 
absorption of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, 
just as the body absorbs the nourishment assimilated or extracted by 
the stomach from the food taken into it. Is this not so? But now 
let us see what such a view of the matter would mean. It would mean 
that the finite absorbs the Infinite; the lesser containing the Greater; 
the creature assimilating the Creator; the soul of man absorbing the 
Soul of Christ — God, and the part containing the Whole, would it 
not? Will you admit that? Hardly. Well, then, what does Tran- 
substantiation turn out to be? Is it not another error, a species of 
blindness? a. f. y. Now, this great gigantic structure of error, that of 
Transubstantiation, Eticharist, and the Mass rests on this passage, 
"This is my body." Matt. 26:26. I know nothing of the Greek lan- 
guage, but it seems that at the beginning of the Reformation, Zwin- 
gle, who understood the Greek language, and who would not reject 
and stultify his God-given faculties, as Luther did when he said: "I 
reject reason, common sense, carnal arguments, and mathematical 
proofs. Goil is above mathematics. We have the Word of God; we 
must adore it [Real Presence] and perform it!" (15:455) must have 
been right after all in his controversy with Luther about Transub- 
stantiation, when he said "that there is no other word in the Greek 
language than sori (is) to express 'signifies.' " 15:346. From what 
I have already said about Transubstantiatian it looks as though the 
heresy of Zwingle is the truth of to-day, does it not? a. f. y. And 
now to prove to you that it is the truth to-day we will see what "Ex- 
cept you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you 
shall not have life in yoii," (John 6:54) means. If this passage is to 
be taken literally, then, what becomes of children who die between 
seven years — the supposed age of reason — and the age of twelve, who 
have not received Communion yet, and, therefore, have not complied 
with the divine precept "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, 
and drink his blood," tliey have not life — everlasting life — in them? 

What is the difference in the meaning "Unless a man be bom 
again of wafer and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
of God," — (John 3:5) wdiich is believed to mean Baptism — and "Ex- 
cept you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you 
shall not have life in you," — which is believed to mean Communion? 



"74 

Does it say, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
His blood, you shall not have life in you, provided you have not been 
born again of water and the Holy Ghost, in which case you shall have 
life in you anyway?" If it does not say so — and it does not say so — 
then what becomes of those children who die between the ages of 
seven and twelve, and who have not made their first Communion? It 
will not do to say that the child must understand what it is doing, 
therefore, it must first be instructed into the mysteries of the Eucha- 
rist, for how can any one ever understand that which is "superintelli- 
gible?" "The Real Presence, as held by the Catholic Church is 
altogether * * * superintelligible." 35:86. 

Has a ten day old baby more understanding, that it can tell when 
it hears the voice of the Spirit mentioned in John 3 :8, and is there- 
fore ready to be baptized, than has a child of eleven years and nine 
months old, who is in the sixth grade, of John 6:54, but who is not 
permitted to make its first Communion because it has not attained to 
the age of twelve years, the age the Church has made as a rule or law 
before which it can not make its first Communion, in order to keep it 
in the Catholic schools as long as possible? If it has not, it can not 
be "bom again" as Jesus meant it. Yet the child is baptized, but the 
eleven year and nine months old child is not allowed to make its first 
Communion. Where is there warrant in the Bible for such fast and 
loose way of playing with Scriptural divine precepts? There is none; 
the Catholic Church is too much of a human invention to be consis- 
tent in its literal interpretations of Scriptural passages. If she were 
guided by the Holy Spirit, as she claims she is, would she have 
changed in her view of the interpretation of John 6:54. because she 
does not administer Communion until the child has attained the age 
of twelve, while in the primitive days she gave it to infants? "In the 
primitive days of the Church, the Holy Communion used to be im- 
parted to infants, but only in the form of wine. The priest dipped 
his finger in the consecrated chalice, and gave it to be sucked by the 
infant. This custom prevails to this day among the schismatic 
Christians of all the Oriental rites." 81:347. "The practice has pre- 
vailed at some times and places of giving Communion even to infants." 
45:346. How is this for a Church which claims it is unchangeable, 
and that no one could prevail on her to change "one i-o-ta" in any- 
thing? It will not do to say that it was on account of the fear of 
spilling some of the sacred elements — therefore the Lord — that the 



75 

practice of giving Communion to infants was abolished, for to this 
day the Lord is liable to adhere to linens in small particles. "Silence 
should be observed in the Sacristies; or at least we should speak in a 
low voice, because the Sacristy is part of the Church, and it might be 
that our Lord is there really present in some small particle of the con- 
secrated Host, adhering to the sacred linens." 36:17. Now if our 
Lord is liable to be spilled by adhering to "linens in small ijarticles," 
and "this holy mystery must be believed, and can not be comprehend- 
ed" (5:421) anyway, then why does not the Church interpret John 
6:54 as literally as she does John 3:5, and administer Communion to 
infants, as she does Baptism to them? Does this not prove that she 
is just as much a "human invention" as is any Protestant Church to 
which she applies that accusation? a. f. y. Had Jesus not explained 
His meaning in "It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth 
nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life," 
(John 6:64) of "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
His blood, you shall not have life in you," we would have no alterna- 
tive left but to take Him literally in this latter quotation of His. But 
this is the key to His figurative speech, in which the Bible abounds 
much, that the spirit of the letter He uttered meant imbibing — eating 
— His spirit and life. Now, how would you put on the spirit and life 
of any one? Would you, for instance, in wanting to put on the spirit 
and life of Father Damien, or of Abraham Lincoln, make a represen- 
tation of them in some eatable article and eat it, or make a badge with 
their photos on it and wear it, or would you get books giving a history 
of their lives, read them — eat them Scripturally — imbibe their spirit 
and life, and imitate them through the operation of the mind by an 
act of the will? Is this not a plain, reasonable, and comprehensible 
solution of this so-called mystery of eating the flesh and blood of 
Christ, the putting on His spirit and life? When Jesus said: "My 
flesh is meat indeed: and My blood is drink indeed: he that eateth My 
flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him," (John 6: 
56, 57) was it to be taken differently from that when He said: "My 
meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His 
work?" John 4:34. Is one to be taken literally and the other figur- 
atively? If so, by what rule of logic or process of reasoning, is it 
done? There is none. The Church has simply erred in taking the 
letter for the spirit of Jesus' teachings. When Jesus said: "I am 
the living bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of 



76 

this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that 1 will give, is my 
flesh for the life of the world," (John 6:51, 52) He did not mean that 
we should eat Him literally, but it meant eating — imbibing— His 
teachings — the Gospel, the Bread of Life, the Word or Will of God — 
and the bread. His flesh for the life of the world as an example and a 
sacrifice — in the same sense that the son, of my illustration in a for- 
mer chapter, sacrificed his life to the saving of the adopted children 
of his father — all of which we were to. manifest in our flesh — spirit 
and life — through the operation of the mind by an act of the will, by 
imitating — putting on — His sj^irit and life. Is this clear to you? It 
is the same as if this book could talk and would say to you: "I am 
the word, spirit, and life of John Hunkey, he that eateth me — reads 
and imbibes what I contain or say — shall live, manifest the spirit and 
life of Johh Hunkey, through the operation of the mind bj- an act of 
the will." Now, the Church has, as it were, taken Jesus, — the book^ 
eats Him literally, the same as if you ate this book literally, and she 
believes by doing this she puts on Christ — His spirit and life — the 
same as if you literally ate this book you would be putting on my 
spirit and life. Do you see the jooint now which I wish to make. If 
you do, is it not plain to you now, the error of the Church's teaching 
of the manner in which Christ is put on? To give you in a nutshell 
the error in the Church's interpretation of what constitutes the put- 
ting on of Christ, by taking the letter for the spirit, I will quote you 
the Holy Father, Leo XIII., himself: "He alone is able to fulfil the 
duties of a Christian life who has jxit on Christ, and Christ is not put 
on except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic table. For by this 
does Christ dwell in us and we in Him. * * * Given at Rome, in 
St. Peter's, this tenth day of January, 1900, the twenty-second year of 
our Pontificate. Leo XIII. , Pope." 53: April 4, 1900. [According 
to this, children under twelve years of age, who have not made their* 
first Communion, can not "fulfil the duties of a Christian life," hence 
are not Christians.] Is this not an apparent, palpable, and unmis- 
takable error? If he had said: "Christ is not put on except by the 
imbibing of His words — the Gospel, the Bread of Life — and manifest- 
ing them through the operation of ihe mind by an act of the will, by 
imitating Him in His spirit and life in our own daily lives," then one 
would be constrained to admit that the appellation "eagle eye" was 
quite appropriate to ai3i)ly to him, in discerning an error in doctrine, 
as well as seeing that "nowadays a venal press is working great harm 



77 

everywhere by its total lack of principle," and that "His Holiness, 
Leo XIII., with his eagle eye, sees this, and he takes every occasion 
in season and out of season, to encourage and foster Catholic writers 
and the Catholic press." 54:29, Sept. 1902. Here is another sample 
of "eagle eye" discernment. "The Blessed Eucharist is literally what 
our Lord calls it — 'The Bread of Life,' for individual souls and for 
the entire Church. His most magnificent promises are made with 
regard to it. The chief source of faith, hope, and charity, Pope Leo 
calls it." 55: Oct. 1902. Instead of discerning errors with his "eagle 
eye," he promulgates them by as much as saying that Christ can not 
be put on any other way than by frequenting the Eucharistic table. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. If he had said: "Christ is also put on by the 
frequentation of the Eucharistic table," then it would have been a 
a different proposition. But when he says: "Christ is not put on 
except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic table," then is he, or 
is he not, wide of the mark of being a Holy Spirit guided and preser- 
ved from error, Infallible Vicar of Christ? a. f. y. 

We will now examine a text which is fatal to the doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation" and Eucharist. 

Jesus said: "If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my 
Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our 
abode with him." John 14:23. It does not say, "If any one love me 
he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and he will come 
to us, and we will make our abode with him, by eating my flesh and 
drinking my blood," does it? But it says distinctly, "we will come to 
him," does it not? Well, then, supposing a person loves Christ, by 
keeping — doing — His words, and by so doing He and the Father come 
to one and make their abode with one, how can one then receive God 
under the veil of the Eucharist when He already abides in one? It 
would be like your friend A was in your house visiting you, and you 
should get word to the effect that if you did a certain thing your 
friend A would come to visit you when already with you. Is this not 
so? How can your friend A come to you under any representation 
when already with you? How can God come to you under the repre- 
sentation of the Eucharist when already dwelling — abiding — with you ? 
Can a "creature made of dust" crompress more substance of God into 
a bread wafer than already fills all space? When was the order of 
creation reversed, that at one time God spoke and "slime of the earth" 
(Gen. 2:7) became man, and now man — priest speaks and "slime of 



78 

the earth" (51:42) becomes the "celestial Grod?" One might exclaim 
with the priest, and say, "Crreat God!" what is the matter with the 
giant intellects, the well educated the deep-thinking minds of the 
prelates of the Church, that no one should have discerned the errone- 
ous, idolatrous, and blasphemous nature of Transubstantiation, Eu- 
charist, and the Mass? Or have some discerned it, but for policy's 
sake or expediency, refrained from acknowledging it, as Luther related 
the priests of Rome, on a visit there, gave him some samples of what 
kind of reverence they had for the Eucharist, showing that they had 
discerned the nature of it or they would not have treated it in the 
manner they did. 

■'They [priests to Luther on his first visit to Rome] related, 
amongst other things, laughing, and priding themselves upon it, how 
when saying Mass at the altar, instead of the sacramental words which 
were to transform the elements into the body and blood of the Saviour, 
they pronounced over the bread and wine these sarcastic words: 'Bread 
thou art, and bread thou shalt remain; wine thou art, and wine thou 
shalt remain;' then continued they, 'we elevate the pyx, and all the 
people worship.' Luther could scarcely believe his ears." 15:53. 
Here is some more of it, that makes it appear rather suspicious that 
some have not discerned the error of the doctrines under considera- 
tion. "All our readers know how, at the tirde of the French revolution, 
priest after priest came forward to declare that his doctrine, his min- 
istry, his whole life, had been a lie, a mummery during which he could 
scarcely compose his countenance sufficiently to carry on the impos- 
ture." 56:109. 

Now, I do not accuse any Church prelate of duplicity or imposture, 
becaiise I had an experience with a priest once which leads me to 
believe that they can scarcely be accused of hypocrisy. It was while 
I was bedridden, and when I still believed in j)raying to the Blessed 
Virgin, that I prayed so earnestly for relief from ray affliction that I 
weighed every word that I uttered. Well, on this occasion I prayed 
under those circumstances and state of mind, that when I said: "Pray 
for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the 
promises of Christ," the thought came to me, whether one was worthy 
to receive the promises of Christ which pertain to the life to come, 
when one was not worthy enough to realize His promises which per- 
tain to this life ? I had prayed and prayed, yet I could not realize the 
promise of Christ which pertains to this life, and which is this. "If 



79 

you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: 
how much more will your Father, who is in Heaven, give good things 
to them that ask him?" Now, here is a promise of being given good 
things if one asked for them. Well, I had for years, when I had not 
even heard of Christian Science, prayed for health, because I had 
learned to know that doctors and medicines were powerless to give it 
to me — and I also entertained hopes that if my health were restored 
again I might yet prove myself worthy of that Irish girl, of whom I 
already have made mention, and be permitted to go through life with 
her, hand in hand as her comijanion, to share with her her joys and 
sorrows; you may know then that I prayed earnestly — yet I never 
received the promise made by Jesus about receiving "good things" 
from God, by asking him for them. Would it not have been a good 
thing for me, if the teachings of the Catholic Church were true, that 
apostates to that Church will be damned forever, if I had received 
the health I prayed for years ago, and would thereby have never lost 
my faith? Well, in a few days after this thought came to me, about 
being worthy or not to receive the promises of Christ, the priest called 
to see me, and I told him about this thought coming to me. He said, 
"that was indeed a good thought to meditate on, but it had never 
occurred to him." He also said, "I hope you will get well and become 
a priest one day, for one with such a good thought ought to make a 
good priest." (Well, you can imagine what kind of "good priest" I 
would make now.) It may be seen, then, from this incident that 
priests may be so engrossed in matters of different kinds, so as not to 
give that serious, earnest and deep thought to questions of doctrine 
that one would who cannot do anything but lie bedfast and read, think 
and reason, undisturbed, as I did, for a few years. Therefore I do not 
accuse priests of hypocrisy in matters of religious doctrines and prac- 
tices, yet it does appear marvelous to me that the many errors I have 
discerned in the Church have never, or should never have, been dis- 
cerned by any Church prelate of giant intellect, deep learning, or 
"eagle eye." Some of them are, no doubt, well versed in the Greek 
and the Latin languages, and if there is any truth in the statement 
made by a professor when he said: "You can not study Latin or 
Greek for any time without acquiring the power to think on clearer 
cut lines and to reason more clearly. You are studying a language 
that permits no nonsense," (57: April 19, 1901,) then, indeed, is it most 
marvelous that no one has discerned the errors which I, with no more 



80 

knowledge of Greek or Latin than a ten-day old Catholic baby has 
about being "born again" have discerned. One may ask, what kind of 
studying do ecclesiastical students do if they "are usually obliged to 
devote from ten to fourteen years to the diligent study of the modem 
and ancient languages, of history and philosophy, of the great science 
of theology and Holy Scripture, before they are elevated to the sacred 
ministry," (31:452,) and what kind of reading matter does a priest 
read if he "is an omniverous reader," 57: July 5, 1901,) and no one of 
these should discern the errors in the Catholic Church which I have 
discerned? No doubt the latter part of Matt. 6:23, if we substitute 
the word "error" for "darkness," may joroperly be applied to those 
who study so much and never discern anything wrong. "If, then, the 
light that is in thee be darkness: — error — the darkness — error — itself 
how great shall it be?" I suppose I have said enough so far to satisfy 
any rational, thinking, and reasonable mind that the Mass, with its 
concomitants, is an error, idolatry, and blasphemy, but as the subject 
under consideration is of such great importance to the Church, both 
in its religious nature and in its financial value, I will devote more 
time and space to it so as to — as stated in the beginning of this chap- 
ter — "pulverize it that its atoms of remains can not be gathered 
together again forever." I believe that to do so is indispensable if I 
wish to accomplish my object, that of Christian Unity, or the union 
of the Churches. If I do not succeed in accomplishing my object, 
with the "arms of the intellect," then, I do not see how it is possible 
to do so in any other way. God gave us the faculty of the intellect, 
or understanding, and to me it seems it would be just as great a sin 
and an impeachment of the wisdom and benevolence of God to reject 
it, as it would be to destroy one's eyes so as not to see, or to destroy 
one's ears so as not to hear. Therefore, I shall use the intellect, or 
xmderstanding, wherever and whenever it can be employed, or used, 
and will not reject or stultify it, even if it results in my standing alone 
in the world and everybody would thrust a dagger into me if they had 
the chance to do so. I try to make myself realize what I am going up 
against when I go against the "wisdom and learning of eighteen hun- 
dred years of the Church," that I know I must meet every point 
possible, otherwise I might not succeed in accomplishing my object. 

We will now begin with examining some of the points which the 
Church presents in its arguments for establishing its errors as truths. 
The Church says: "Sacrifice is the highest kind of worship." 85:87. 



81 

Is that true according to the following? "Obedience is better than 
sacrifice;" (I Kings 15:22.) "Oflfer up the sacrifice of justice;" (Ps. 4: 
6.) "A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit;" (Ps. 50:19.) "To do 
mercy and judgment, pleaseth the Lord more than victims;" (Prov. 
21:3.) "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice." Oser 6:6. If sacri- 
fice was not the highest kind of worship in the old dispensation, and 
if Grod is unchangeable, can it be the highest kind now? Let us see 
what the new dispensation says about it. "If you knew what this 
meaneth: I will have mercy and not sacrifice: you would never have 
condemned the innocent." Matt. 12:7. "Present your bodies a living 
sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service." Rom. 
12:1. Does this sound like sacrifice is the "highest kind of worship?" 
a. f . y. "Be ye also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy 
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ." 1 Peter 2:5. To whom was this epistle addressed because 
he said: "Be ye * * * a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual 
sacrifices?" Read the whole chapter, and it will tell you. If every 
one then can offer iip "spiritual sacrifices" then it does not require a 
sacrifice of the Mass, with Jesus Christ as its supposed victim, does 
it? Again: if the "Sacrifice of the Mass is identical with that of the 
cross, both having the same victim and High Priest — Jesus Christ," 
(31:356) does Jesus suffer again the agony He did while on the cross, 
and cry out, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matt. 
27 :46. If not, then it is not the same sacrifice. And if He does go 
through the same agony every time a Mass is celebrated, then what 
kind of a God is that who would require the continual agony of His 
"well beloved" Son to keep down or appease His wrath? What blas- 
phemy! "At every hour, then, in various parts of the world, this 
most perfectly holy Priest offers to the Father His blood. His soul, 
and His whole self for us: and all this He does as many times as there 
are Masses celebrated in the whole world." 49:42. 

■ Do you not think it was about time some one became "presumpt- 
uous" enough "to put one's ignorance against the wisdom and learn- 
ing of eighteen hundred years of the Church," and defend and vindi- 
cate God from such slanders and calumnies as the Church, unwitting- 
ly, let us hope, heaps upon Him? " 'By the oblation of this [sacri- 
fice] God, being appeased and granting grace and the gift of penance, 
wipes out transgressions and even, great crimes:' provided that, 'with 
sincere heart and right faith, we approach penitently to God.' " 



82 

(Council of Trent.) 51:13. This would be as if the luiraan father of 
my illustration, in a former chapter, would require a representation of 
his infamous, reprehensible deed, — of requiring the death of his only 
beloved son to ai^jjease his anger, which was aroused by an offense of 
his adopted children — as a reminder to him that he may become soft- 
ened and forgive an offense committed against him after the infamous 
deed of his had been committed. Is that your conception of God's 
character? Why, a human father who should have been guilty of 
such a mad, insane act, as requiring the death of his only son to ap- 
pease his wrath, would, on recovering his sanity, exclaim: "For God's 
sake! do no remind me of that mad, infamous, reijrehensible act of 
mine," should a representation be made of his act to remind him of if? 
Is that not so? Yet here is a God who, according to the Catholic 
Church, requires hourly representations of such an act in order to ajj- 
pease Him, so He can be in a mood* to "wipe out transgressions.'" 
No doubt, God will forgive the Church, for she seems not to know 
what she is doing. The fact that Jesus said: "Do this for a com- 
memoration of me," (Luke 22:19) does not imply that it was to be a 
representation of His ignominious death on the cross as a sacrifice to 
appease the anger of God, but as a sort of a memento of His love for 
us, in that He was willing to suffer for the privilege of showing us the 
way to a more abundant life. It was also a sort of a love feast symbol 
of the brotherly union of His followers. And this "h)ve feast," as it 
were, was to be participated in oidy by those who proved themselves 
worthy of it by a Christ-like life, and not by going to Confession as 
the Church erroneously teaches. And those who did not prove them- 
selves worthy of it by a Christ-like life — such as St. Paul spoke of as 
"infirm and weak among you, and many sleep," (1 Cor. 11:30)— and 
who would join in this "love feast" of the brethren in Christ, — body 
of the Lord, as followers of Christ were spoken of, "you are the body 
of Christ, and members of member" (1 Cor. 12:27) — not the body of 
the Lord in the bread and wine, would bring judgment on themselves 
for not discerning what was requisite in constituting the body of the 
Lord — "you are the body of Christ" — from the stand-point of a Christ- 
like life, by taking part in the "love feast," under such circumstances. 
Is this plain to you now what it means to prove oneself worthy to par- 
take of the Lord's Supper — "love feast" of the brethren in Christ — 
and how and why some should bring judgment on themselves in par- 
taking of it under certain circumstances? It does not say: "Not 



83 

discerning the body and blood of the Lord," but simply the body of 
the Lord, which means the body of the Lord according to "you are the 
body of Christ." Do you suppose that if the living water of Christ, 
as the Church teaches is only to be had in the partaking of the 
Eucharist, Jesus would have ofPered it to any one to drink when He 
had not yet instituted the Last Supper? 

The following texts prove beyond the peradventure of a doubt 
that the receiving of the "Bread of Life" is not in the literal eating 
of the flesh and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, but the imbibing — 
drinking in — of his words, the Grosjjel. "Jesus answered and said to 
her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who He is that saith to 
thee, Grive me to drink, thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and 
He would have given thee living water." John 4:10. And "on the 
last and great day of the festivity, Jesvis stood and cried, saying : If 
any man thirst let him come to me, and drink." John 7:37. It does 
not say anything about it that it would be given in time, but that it 
was to be had then and there. It implies that the drinking was the 
imbibing of what Jesus taught about what one must do to have the 
"abundant life." It is plain, then, to see that the Church has greatly 
erred in taking the letter for the s^jirit of Christ's teachings, in that 
she has taught the literal eatiiig of the flesh and blood of Jesus, 
instead of the eating — through the operation of the mind by an act of 
the will, manifested in a Christ-like life — the spirit and life of Jesus, 
which was the sj^irit of humility, forgiveness, symioathy, and good 
will, and a life, which may be summed up in "He went about doing 
good." Which of the two interpretations appeals to your reason, 
intellect, and common sense the most, and which is the less erroneous, 
idolatrous, and blasphemous, the Church's interpretation or mine, of 
putting on Christ? a. f. y. 

What chalice was it that Jesus had reference to when He said: 
"My Father, if this chalice may not i^ass away, but I must drink it, 
Thy will be done?" Matt. 26:42. It could not mean the chalice of 
blood He was going to make of wine at the Last Supper, for it says: 
"With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you before I suffer." 
Luke 22:15. What did it mean then? It was a figurative way of 
speaking, and had reference to His sufferings. Well, then, if Jesus 
used figurative language in the one case might He not do so in others? 
And when He said "This is my body," — which Zwingle has shown 
should really be translated this "signifies" — did He not use a figurative 



84 

expression, inasmuch as His body, like the bread, was, in one 
sense of the word, broken, and blood flowed from it while on the 
cross? My reason, intellect, and common sense convinces me, without 
the least shadow of a doubt about it, that I am right, and that the 
Church is in error in her interpretations of the subject under consid- 
eration. For had I the least doubt about the matter, I would be 
taking a terrible and awful risk, in that I might be committing the 
worst kind of a sacrilege and blasphemy in attacking the teachings of 
the Church on this subject, of so great imjjortance to her and to her 
children, if she should be right and I should be wrong. Had I never 
asked myself the question, "What becomes of Christ when the appear- 
ances of bread and wine no longer remain?" I probably would never 
have been led to analyze the Eucharist as I did, and which resulted in 
the discovery that it is an error. When it says in the Bible: "Eat 
this book, and go speak to the children of Israel. And I opened my 
mouth, and he caused me to eat that book," (Eze. 3:1-2,) does that 
literally mean that Ezechiel opened his mouth and ate the book? Or, 
when it says: "Take the book, and eat it up: and it shall make thy 
belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey." (Apoc. 10:9,) 
that St. John literally ate the book? Hardly. But it meant the 
imbibing^of its spirit — contents — just as if I should say to you to eat 
this book, I would not really mean that you should literally eat it by 
chewing the leaves of it and swallowing them, but that you are to read 
it, and imbibe its contents — spirit. So likewise when Jesus said: 
"He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me and I 
in him," (John 6:57,) meant the imbibing of His "spirit and life," 
(John 6:64), His teachings, the Gospel — the "Bread of Life," — and not 
the literal eating of His flesh and blood. And now that this is what 
is meant by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of 
Man, does it not make it a fact that the "is" used in "This is my body," 
stands for "signifies," just as Zwingle claimed it did, according to the 
knowledge^he had of the Greek language? And the breaking of the 
bread, did it not signify the breaking, in one sense of the word, of 
Jesus' body when on the cross blood flowed from it? Is not all this 
plain, reasonable, and comprehensible now? If it is, we will then see 
how weak some of the points are which are presented to substantiate 
the teachings of the Church on the subject under consideration. "Q. 
When Christ had finished these words, 'This is my body,' what was 
that which He then held in His hands? A. It was Christ's body 



85 

which He held in his hands. Q. Was this body of Christ His own 
real body, with His blood in it, and soul, and divinity? A. Yes; it 
was his own real, living body." 13:66-67. Any one using reason and 
understanding knows this is an utter impossibility ; that no one can 
hold in one's own hands one's real self, yet one can hold a jihoto in 
one's hand which represents one's self, and this Jesus did of the 
bread He held in His hands which represented, by breaking it, the 
ordeal — breaking — of what His body would go through when on the 
cross. It is only with the eye of faith that this could be believed, that 
Jesus held his own body in His hands just as it requires Christian 
Scientists to make "Intellect a dethroned king" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900,) 
with them, in order to believe their infallible teacher when she says: 
"God is all, there is nothing for Him to enter bvit Himself." 59:146- 
152. This would be like a sock that would turn itself outside in, 
which would be to "enter itself," would it not? Well, there is just as 
much sense — intellect — in saying a sock "entered itself" as for God to 
"enter Himself," or for Jesus to hold His own body in His hands. Is 
this not so? a. f. y. The Church says again: "This consecration 
[Transubstantiation] is effected on the altar during the holy Sacrifice 
of the Mass * * * when the i^riest in the name and by the power 
of Christ pronounces over the bread and wine the words which Christ 
Himself j)ronounced when he instituted this holy Sacrament. St. 
Ambrose writes: 'At the moment that the Sacrament is to be accom- 
plished, the priest no longer uses his own words, but Christ's words, 
therefore Christ's words complete the Sacrament.' " 5:424. This would 
have a tendency, for the unthinking mind, to remove all doubts as to 
the priest's power to change the "slime of the earth" into the "true 
God of true God, the true Light of true light," (51:41-42,) by saying 
it is no longer the priest's word which does this but Christ's. For a 
test, then, to prove that such is the case, and that the jjriests have all 
the powers conferred on them which they claim they have, as, for 
instance, using Christ's words, "This is my body," which changes 
bread and wine into Christ's body; using Christ's words, "Thy sins 
are forgiven thee," which cancels sins, let them,, then, in view of 
"Then, calling the twelve Apostles, He gave them power and authority 
over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the 
Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick," (Luke 9:1-2,) go to the bed- 
side of the incurable sick and use Christ's words, "Arise and walk," 
and we will then see if Christ's words will "cemplete" the cure or 



86 

healing. When every priest, who believes he can change the bread 
and wine into the body of Christ, can do this, go to the bedside of the 
dying and incurable sick and speak the words of Christ, "Arise and 
walk," and the sick then get up and walk, we will believe then that 
they can as readily change the bread and wine into the body and 
blood of Christ as they can cure or heal the sick. Is asking for such 
a test an unreasonable one, in view of the injunction that they have 
been sent to "preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick?" 
"Oh," but it will be said, "that would be performing miracles, and 
that miracles were only to be used in establishing Christ's religion." 
Is this true, according to the healing which St. Paul did on the island 
of Melita. on which he and those who had been aboard the ship that 
was wrecked on their way from Asia to Rome, landed on, and he a pris- 
oner ? "And it happened that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, 
and of a bloody flux. To whom Paul entered in: and when he had 
prayed, and laid his hands on him, he healed him. Which being 
done, all that had diseases in the island came, and were healed." 
Acts 28:8-9. Did St. Paul preach Christ to the "barbarians" (Acts 
2S-A) of the island? Read the whole of the chapter and it will tell 
you. No. Again, is it not as great a — yea, a greater — miracle to change 
"slime of the earth" into the "God of the true God" — [which would 
be making God, yet He is uncreated and therefore an impossibility 
for the creature to make the Creator] — as it would be to go to the 
bedside of the dying young mother, whose infant daughter would lose 
her mother's care, guide, and influence in the attaining of a virtuous, 
noble, and Christian life, should her mother die, as is often the case, 
and speaks Christ's words to her, "Arise and walk," that she may do so? 
Or go to the bedside of the young husband and father who is dying, 
or who has a long lingering sickness, depriving his family of support, 
and speak to him Christ's words, "Arise and walk," that he may do so? 
Will the argument hold good that the "Church is no longer in need 
of such extraordinary testimony to the truth of her teachings" as were 
the "many miracles * * * in the first days of the Church," (5:376,) 
when at the time of "the first year of the Christian era" the popula- 
tion of the world was "less than o4.(XX),000," and the "estimated popu- 
lation to-day is more than 1.460.000,0(X)," (38:2, Jan. 2, 1901.) and in 
1884 "Hubner estimated the total number of Christians at 432,(X)0,(X)0, 
30.2 per cent, of the world's population ?" 46:580. Is there no longer any 
"need of such extraordinary testimony to the truth of her teachings," 



87 

when but about one-sixth of the world's population (250,000,000) 
are Catholics, leaving about 1,200,000,000, or over twenty-two times 
the population of that of the first days of the Christian era, without 
hope of salvation, if the teachings of the Church are true that there 
is "no hope nor salvation outside of lier fold?"' 

Probably it will be said that the Church is here, and if the people 
will not place themselves inside her pale she is not to blame. Yes, 
but many have a religion that is non-Catholic, which they believe will 
save them, just as the Jews and others, in the beginning of the 
Christian era, had a religion which they believed would save them, 
and if it required "extraordinary testimony" to prove to them that 
Christ's religion was the only one that would save any one, would not 
the same process of reasoning .say that the Church needs now the 
same "extraordinary testimony" to prove that there is "no hope nor 
salvation outside of her fold," when there are twenty-two times as 
many without hope of salvation now, than there were people altogether 
in the world at the beginning of the Christian era? a. f. y. Or is the 
Church's teachings not true, when she says there is "no hope nor 
salvation outside her fold?" 

We will now examine the devotional aspect of the subject under 
consideration. The Church teaches that "the altar is the throne of 
the King," (35:95) which means that Jesus Christ — Grod — is present 
in the tabernacle, "under the appearance of bread," and that the 
"adoration of Jesus in this Sacrament is the best and most pleasing of 
all devotional exercises, and of the greatest advantage to us." 5:427. 
She also teaches that w^e should daily "renounce at least a quarter of 
an hour's intercourse with others, and go to church to entertain your- 
selves there with Christ." 5:-428. Now, this "adoration of Jesiisin this 
Sacrament" — the Eucharist — misleads a great many so-called devout 
and pious into the belief that that is the way to render the greatest ser- 
vice to God. when in fact the greatest service we can render to Grod was 
summarized by Jesus in Matt. 25:85-36, which is to feed the hungry; 
to clothe the naked; to visit the sick, and those in prison, etc. It is 
this misleading tendency in the Church's teachings that I want to 
assail. This devotion, the "adoration of Jesus" in the Eucharist is at 
times focused in what is called "Forty Hour Devotion." This devo- 
tion lasts three days, and usually winds up with a j)rocessiou in the 
church. During these three days of the "exposition of the Blessed 
Sacrament," people are exhorted and expected to go to church 



88 

whenever they can possibly do so, and pay a visit to Christ — God — and 
pray to Him, asking Him for favors and blessings, as though God 
would not now hear prayers, according to Jesus' teachings when He 
said: "But when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having 
shut the door, pray to the Father in secret: and thy father who seeth 
in secret will repay thee." Matt. O-.Cy. And ijeople will go three or 
more times from ten to twenty blocks to church to pray in front of a 
piece of baked dough — which is all it really is — every day during 
these devotions. Of course it is all right for the Church to denounce 
as idolatry the brazen and stone human form gods of the heathens 
and pagans, but her own made God of a wafer, with no resemblance 
to a human being — after whose image and likeness we are suj^posed 
to be created, when bowed down to, or genuflected to by kneeling on 
both knees is not adolatry. Oh, no! 

During these devotions the bells are not rung at the Transubstan- 
tiation in the Mass, presumably for fear the wafer God, who is already 
exposed in a monstrance on the altar, might make a roar if He heard 
the bells ringing in honor of another God which the priest is making 
and whom the priest is going to eat, and to be sure there is no blood 
of God left on his fingers he has "water and wine poured on his 
fingers" (52:73) after he has communicated. This is like a cannibal 
who after he has made a meal of some missionary, sucks his fingers to 
make sure he gets all the blood and grease of the missionary. Not- 
withstanding this precaution, that none of the sacred elements — God 
—may be lost. He is liable to adhere "to the sacred linens, in some 
small j)article (36:17) and be another Lord, making four Gods as an 
environment for the officiating priest; the one in the monstrance, and 
the two taken in Communion, one each under each form of bread and 
of wine, and the one that "adhered to the sacred linens." "Did the 
apostles receive Jesus Christ Himself whole and entire: first, under 
the appearances of bread; and secondly, under the appearances of 
wine? A. Yes; thej' received Him whole and entire under each 
form." 13:69. According to this the priest, a finite creature, can 
contain two Infinite Creators, a thing of which the heavens and the 
earth can not contain one, let alone two. Here is indeed a paradox. 
But then, anything goes with "faith," if accompanied by a generous 
suj^ply of verbiage. 

When they had the closing exercises of the "Forty Hour Devo- 
tions" in St. Benedict's Church here, November 2d, 1902, there was 



89 

first a sermon on the devotion; then a chanting in Latin of the Litany 
of the Saints; then what Haeckel calls an "unintelligible verbosity 
and theatrical" (60:286) procession, which lasted just eighteen min- 
utes, in which the school children sang Latin songs; little girls 
strewed flowers; young ladies carried lighted candles — one of whom 
who, no doubt, had made a vow — when she was "born again of water 
and the Holy Ghost" — of renouncing the world, the flesh and the 
devil, was carrying in one hand a lighted candle, and in the other her 
fashionably cut trail of the dress, to keep it from being stepped on by 
those marching behind her; then boys ringing bells, just preceding 
the canopy under which God was being carried, to notify the faithful 
that their God was about to i^ass by so they could get ready to ask 
Him, when He did pass them, for "great favors and blessings." Well, 
when I beheld all this, and knew that it was only a piece of baked 
dough, and not the God that is that they were carrying, I could 
scarcely — like many of the French priests during the Revolution in 
France (56:109) — compose myself, yet my amusement, at the sight, 
was mingled with pity for the blind, credulous, and unthinking peojjle, 
and I ijrayed to God to enable me one day to proclaim the truth to the 
world, and to smash, with the "arms of the intellect" this great error 
of God in the Eucharist. After the procession they had Benediction 
with this same wafer God and all those who received His blessing, no 
doubt, felt at the time that they were in an earthly paradise." "The 
benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is the earthly paradise of all her 
[the Church's] loving children." 11:430. Oh, well! I was just as 
blind, credulous, ami uhthinking myself ui? to my thirty -seventh year 
of age, believing in all this error as being the truth, and I believed I 
showed "superior wisdom" to that of my non-Catholic fellow-men for 
believing it and because they did not. 

Now, the misleading nature of the "^adoration of Jesi;s in this 
Sacrament as being the greatest advantage to us," (5:427) is, as 
already mentioned, the phase of it that I want to attack especially. 
It misleads people, as I said before, into believing that if they only 
scrupulously observe the regulations and observances in connection 
with worshipjjing Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament that they are 
thereby rendering to God the greatest service possible, and fruits of 
such misleading beliefs we may see about us from time to time. Peo- 
ple will visit the church, go into the presence of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, appear to be ijious and devout, and probably pray in part about 



90 

as follows: "O my Jesus! I humble myself before Thee, I love Thee 
with my whole heart, and my neighbor as myself," yet who are so 
proud, vain, conceited, jealous, envious, selfish, quarrelsome, unfor- 
giving, etc., that they will not join a Young Ladies" Sodality, because 
there are too many "kitchen mechanics" — that is, servant girls — belong- 
ing to it; who, when they fail to prove themselves worthy of a young 
man they desire to marry, and who marries an attractive sensible 
servant girl, speak of his wife as only a ''pot slinger:" who refuse to 
recognize "common laborers," because they want to belong to the 
"400," and it would not do to be too intimately acquainted with any 
who do not part their hair in the middle, or who do not wear "stylish," 
"up to date," "fashionably cut" clothes, for which, probably the dress- 
maker's or the tailor's bills are unpaid for month's back, or who leave 
unpaid board bills whenever they can; who speak of their wives 
twenty years after an offense — that of refusing to give any more of 
their inheritance to their husbands to put into a losing venture — was 
committed, still speak of the wife as that "false woman;" who can no* 
get along with their families, so they leave home and work for others' 
and in turn must hire strangers to do the work those who left would 
have done. Those and many more incidents of like nature which have 
come imder my observation, led me to ask the question. Is that really 
the way to lead a Christ-like life, to be guilty of all the above faults 
and still be regarded and be looked upon as "pious" and "devout" peo- 
ple by those who do not know of their innermost conduct? Yet all 
these were regarded as "i^ious" and "devout" which I had in mind 
when making the above criticisms of them. Something told me that 
that was not the way to put on Christ. And I blame the erroneous 
teachings of the Church for it. She teaches wrongly what consti- 
tutes rendering God the greatest service; she teaches wrongly when 
she says Communion preserves "from mortal sin"" (7:457) and that it 
"confers actual grace and preserves us from mortal sin" (6:336); 
that it confers supernatural grace and strength. If communion "pre- 
serves us from mortal sin"' then why would the author of the "Hidden 
Treasure" have priests to confess "every morning'?"' 49:140. And 
why does it not restrain a young priest from compromising his good 
looking young house-keeper and afterwards marrying her. thereby 
breaking his vow of celibacy also, if Communion preserves from mor- 
tal sin? A boy is put into a college at eight or ten years of age, 
sprinkles himself with holy water daily, in time makes his first 



91 

Communion, and finally is ordained a priest, saying Mass daily and 
Communicating daily before he is sent out to take charge of a parish, 
where he meets a house-keeper whom he marries. Does that not 
prove that it is only a piece of baked dough which he partakes of 
daily in Mass, and can therefore no more restrain the impelling forces 
within him than an oyster cracker would if eaten, and that it all lies 
with his exercising his inherent faculties of reason and free will — an 
operation of the mind by an act of the will — in restraining himself? 
No Communion, holy water, etc., preserves any one "supernaturally" 
from mortal sin. And if Communion does not preserve the priests 
from sin for even twenty -four hours, what benefit then is Communion 
to one who goes to it once a week, or a month, or quarterly, or once a 
year, according to the law of the Church that one must go to Commu- 
nion at least once a year "under pain of mortal sin?" 7:474. Think 
of a Catholic who recites the following act: "0 My God! I love Thee 
above all things, with my whole heart and soul, purely because Thou 
art infinitely perfect and deserving of all love," (29:11,) who must be 
enjoined by the Church, "under pain of mortal sin," to receive at 
least once a year, in Communion, this Grod whom one loves "above all 
things!" What a mockery! Such a religion is only mechanical and 
man made. If religion is not spontaneous, of the "born again" kind, 
it is no religion at all, is it? a. f. y. When the Church teaches that 
"He alone is able to fulfil the duties, of a Christian life who has put 
on Christ, and Christ is not put on except by the frequentation of 
the Eucharistic table." (53:April 4, 1900,) is it, or is it not, an error, 
even though the words do come from an infallible Pope? a. f. y. 
When I say that Christ is put on through the operation of the mind 
by an act of the will, — a mental efPort — am I then right or wrong? 
And if right, is it not misleading then to say that "Christ is not put 
on except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic table?" And is it 
not about time such fallacy was exploded? For it misleads people 
into believing that all they have to do is to receive Communion, and 
it will "supernaturally" make them Christ-like, without any effort on 
their part, just as food taken into the stomach will be assimilated by 
the body without any effort on our part. If it is said that we are to 
make an effort in connection with receiving Communion then one may 
ask, does Grod need assistance in supernaturally molding our minds? 
To ask God to help us to mold our minds is a different proposition 
from that of eating Him and letting Him work on us "supernaturally." 



92 

Are anv of the results of the effects of Communion apparent, such as 
"the devils no sooner behold His body and blood in us than they 
immediately take to flight, giving place to the angels, who draw nigh 
and assist us?" 7:460. Is the drunkard made free from his appetite 
for liquor by such an operation as this just mentioned? If he is not, 
why is he not, if angels assist us, and if it is "the devil who reminds 
him of the tavern," (41:27) and the "appetite [for liquor] is surely 
one of the works of the devil?" 61:522. How does the devil get to 
him if the man is drawn nigh to by angels and the devils "take to 
flight" when the man receives Communion, to remind him of the 
tavern, and he goes and gets drunk again in due time? I sujjpose this 
is as great a mystery to j'ou as the mystery of the Eucharist, which is 
"superintelligible ?" 

Do you know now why the "mystery" of the Real Presence in 
the Eucharist is "superintelligible?" It is because there is no truth 
in it, just as there is no truth in the statement that the "devil reminds 
anyone of the tavern." It all lies in the realm of the mind within us. 
If the mind is not taught self-control, and is taught that exterior 
rites, ceremonies and sacramentals confer "supernatural graces." it 
will give vent to outbursts of rage and anger when its patience is 
taxed; it will fall before a flash of an immoral opportunity; it will 
give way to any temptation that is pressing; it is only good when 
there is nothing to make it otherwise. It may be seen, then, that the 
principal thing in the proper training of one is to rely on one's self by 
teaching one tact, judgment, self-control and common sense — by com- 
mon sense I mean here that to follow the Golden Rule is a better way 
of serving Grod and man than to neglect man and go to church to 
take part in so-called "divine services," which in the main consists of 
rites and ceremonies, blindness and idolatry, superstition and blas- 
phemy. 

It will probably be asked if I do not believe in going to church. 
Yes, I do, but it is to a church where it is preached that the way to 
please God is by having sympathy, consideration, charity and good 
will towards our fellow-man, rather than preaching that it increases 
our merit in heaven to "gaze intensely * * * on the Host, where 
the body of Christ lies hid sacramentally" (11:311); that Mass is the 
"most holy" and salutary of all Divine Services, and that in which the 
Most High is honored in the most worthy manner." 30:212. To a 
church where hymns are sung in a language that is understood and 



93 

which touches the heart, rather than a "little opera" — as a choir 
master once remarked to a friend of his as he went into the church 
that he was going to give them a "little opera to-day" — which is a 
feast for the senses, but not for the heart and soul. That is the kind 
of a church I believe in going to. 

We will now look at a phase of the Mass from a monetary point 
of view, both as a revenue producer for the Church and as a burden 
on the laity. 

If any one wants a Mass said for the repose of the souls of the 
dead or for a special intention, it is one dollar for a Low Mass and five 
dollars for a High Mass. "The Bishop has laid it down as a general 
rule for all that the stipend for a Low Mass shall be one dollar, and 
for a High Mass five dollars." 62:130. "A priest is only bound to 
offer Mass for a special intention [which means Masses for the dead, 
for the sick, for the crops, etc.,] when this honorary is paid." 63:84. 
I suppose Dr. Dowie must have had read this, when he could say: 
"If it is high money it is High Mass. If it is low money, it is Low 
Mass. If it is no money, it is no Mass." 64:22. This is, therefore, 
quite a money item for the Church. Just how much this amounts to 
we have no way of knowing, because it is never given in the financial 
statements issued by the Church. That it amounts to quite a "digni- 
fied sum" in a year is hardly questioned. In keeping a count of the 
Masses announced on Sunday, which were to be said during the week 
for the repose of the souls of the departed, and for special intentions, 
not counting the nuptial Masses, and Masses of thanksgiving, etc., I 
made the following counts on the dates mentioned, for those to be said 
in the church, chapel, and as private: In 1901, Aug. 18, 13; Aug. 25, 
12; Nov. 3, 16; Nov. 10, 18; Nov. 17, 17; Nov. 24, 21; Dec. 1, 15; 
Dec. 8, 21; in 1902, Jan. 5, 18; Jan. 12, 20; Jan. 19, 18; Feb. 23, 18; 
Mar. 2, 21; Mar. 9, 18; Mar. 16. 18; Mar. 30, 21; Aug. 24, 15, making 
a total of 300 masses for 17 weeks. This is an average of 17| per 
week, or 918 for a year. Now, some of these were funeral Masses, 
which, as a rule, are High Masses at five dollars each, but I counted 
them in with the one dollar ones. This does not include the funeral 
Masses of those who die and are buried between the announcement 
time of Masses of one Sunday and the following Sunday. There are 
also Masses paid for for which no announcement is made in the 
Church. 

One Sunday, after Mass, as I was standing in the vestibule of the 



94 

church waiting for the street car, a lady gave the priest a dollar for a 
Mass to be said any time during the week. How many there are of 
these I have no idea, .but I do not think that they are many, yet 
it proves the fact that all Masses paid for are not announced in 
church. Taking these, then, with the nuptial Masses, which are 
usually High Masses, at five dollars each, and the unannounced 
funeral Masses, which also are usually High Masses at five dollars 
or more each — for I- know of a case where the priest's regular charge 
is twenty dollars for conducting funeral services, but on account of 
the people being poor renters he made it fifteen dollars in one case. 
This came out in the administrator making his statement of the 
afPairs of the estate over which he had been placed. These with the 
other 918 will safely make a total of one thousand dollars a year for 
directly paid for Masses. Not taking into consideration the paid for 
Masses in the other church in the city, we have then at least, for 
twenty thousand inhabitants, an expenditure of one thousand dollars 
paid direct for Masses. (This seems like bartering holy things.) 

If we take this ratio for the remainder of the coujitrv. estimating 
the population at eighty millions, we have then a total of four million 
dollars annually paid for Masses in the United States, which I have 
already proven are nothing but species of error, blindness, idolatry, 
and blasphemy. Think of it! four million dollars annually drained 
from the pockets of the Catholics, for that which is worse than noth- 
ing in the sight of God. This ought to be a "dignified sum'' all right 
enough for honoraryisms, pin money, for the priests, ought it or ought 
it not? a. f. y. And then my estimate may be one or two millions too 
low. 

Now for the cost to Catholics for the maintenance of the altars on 
which God is supposed to be made, and where He dwells, waiting in 
loneliness for some charitably inclined person to "renounce fifteen 
minutes intercourse with friends" and come to Him to "entertain" 
Him. In this estimate of cost for the maintenance of altars there will 
not be included the side altars, but only the main altars. Each church 
has a main altar, and mahy have from one to five side altars. Now in 
every church there is a society called the "Altar [Society" which is 
supposed to pay the expenses for the maintenance of the altar for 
everything connected with the altar excepting the candles, which are 
expected to be donated by parishoners on Candle-Mass Day, (Febru- 
ary 2,) in sufficient numbers to last for a year. In the three "Annual 



95 

Financial" reports, which I have at hand, the receij^ts from the Altar 
Society was $216.70 in 1899: $294.98 in 1900, and $450.30 in 1901, 
making a total of $961.98 for three years, or an average of $320.66 for 
a year. If we take, then, the same ratio for the remainder of the 
country which we took in estimating the money paid for Masses, we 
have tlien the sum of $1,282,640 spent annually for the maintenance 
alone of main altars in the Catholic Churches in the United States, 
not counting in what it costs the faithful for candles, which they are 
expected to "offer" — donate — on Candle-Mass Day, nor the time the 
ladies spend in dressing the altars, which time is probably as well 
spent there as at card parties, or '"pink teas," or in "shopping" with 
^o intention of buying anything. We have, then, so far in our esti- 
mating, the sum of $5,282,640 which it costs Catholics annually for 
the celebration of the Mass, a thing which is worse than nothing in 
the sight of God, which I have proved so with the "arms of the intel- 
lect." 

We will now see what it costs for altars on which this species of 
error, blindness, idolatry and blasphemy is celebrated. There is no 
cost given in the item which speaks of "Six Altars Consecrated" in 
one day in one church, but it may be inferred that they did not cost 
anything, for it says that "all the altars, excepting the altar of the 
Sacred Heart, erected by the members of the League of the Sacred 
Heart, were the pious offerings of devoted friends." 53: Dec. 25, 
1901. I mention this to show that I was not making a misrepresen- 
tation when I stated that "each church has a main altar, and many 
have from one to five side altars." I will now give quotations in 
which the cost of the altars is given. "The chancel rails are of Carrara 
marble and the entrance into the sanctuary is through an elaborately 
carved brass gate. The cost of altar and sanctuary rail is $25,000." 
53: Vol. XV, No. 24, 1901. It says further, "the gift of donors who 
wish their identity kept secret." Here is $25,000 spent for a thing 
which is just the reverse of the teachings of Jesus, who said "I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice" and "as long as you did it to one of 
these my least brethren, you did it to me." Matt. 25:40. And this, 
too, in a city, where, if one wants to know of the poverty, squalor and 
misery in it, one but needs to read "How the Other Half Lives," by 
J, A. Riis. The misery described in that book was so appalling and 
heart-rending that I could not read it to the end. And yet here 
money is spent for things, in direct contradiction to the teachings of 



96 

Jesus, in the midst of indescribable misery. No doubt it will be said 
that I am another "Judas" (45:342) for this rebuke of spending money 
for a place to offer sacrifice, and to "put on Christ" according to Pope 
Leo XIII., but if Jesus wanted us to build material abiding places, 
and decorate and adorn them, for Him to dwell in, then why did He 
not tell us to do so, instead of telling us that "If any one love me, he 
will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to 
him, and will make our abode with him?" And is it not sufficient 
and better for God to dwell in our hearts, decorated and ornamented 
with humility, sympathy, kindness, unselfishness, and the practice of 
the Grolden Rule, than to have Him dwell in temples made with hands, 
in which it is said He "dwelleth not?" Acts 17:24 

Here is some more of what it costs for altars. "For the canopy 
of the main altar [in a Memorial Church which cost over §250,000] 
there are eight columns that cost a fortune." 53: May 28, 1902. "The 
architect has submitted plans to the Rev. — , of St. — Church, for a 
new altar which is to be placed in the church. * * * It will be con- 
structed entirely of variegated marble and will cost $10,000." 53: Jan. 
22, 1902. "The altar of the Sacred Heart in the Church of — is rapidly 
nearing completion. Those who intend to contribute towards the 
altar are requested to do so a.t their earliest convenience. The amount 
received is now nearly $10,000. Over $2,000 are still needed to com- 
plete the altar, decorations and other belongings." 53: April 10, 1901. 
Here we have, then, altars costing each ' $10,000, $12,000, $25,000, 
and a "fortune," all for what? Why, to have ceremonies performed 
on them around a piece of baked dough. "Great God!" how blind 
we are! And all because we have been Luthers, who rejected "rea- 
son, common sense, carnal arguments and mathematical proofs." 
15:455. Let us see what else it has cost us for our "complete submis- 
sion of our understanding" to what the "infallible Church proposes" 

(6:868) for our belief. "In St. cathedral there are vestments 

valued at $500,000. The collection is the finest in any cathedral in 
America and compares very favorable with the vestments in many 
famous cathedrals in Europe." 16: July 5, 1901, "All Europe is 
filled with sanctuaries of Our Blessed Lady." 7:523. Do you won- 
der now why the old Catholic countries of Europe are fast becoming 
atheistical in their belief, and are depriving the Church of her tem- 
poral powers, and is banishing her religious orders from their borders, 
when the country has vestments costing $500,000, and is filled with 



07 

sanctuaries of one who, in another chapter I . will show, it is abso- 
lutely impossible to hear the petitions addressed to her, and where 
the majority of the people are poor? See what it has cost us for 
taking the letter instead of the spirit of Christ's teachings! We have 
put the gold on the church steeple instead of putting bread into the 
mouths of those on the ground. 

We will now look at the ceremonial phase of the subject under 
consideration, and after having done so I will let you a. f. y. whether 
or not it is any less a worship that is a "gratuitous insult to God," or 
a religious service that is reduced to the "level of a mere spectacle," 
(63:172-173) than is any Protestant worship. On the principal feast 
<lays of the Church, such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost Sunday, 
they usually have, if there is a resident Bishop or Abbot, what is 
called Pontifical High Mass. Here in Atchison we have a resident 
Abbot who celebrates the Mass for the days already mentioned. In- 
stead of coming into the sanctuary already robed, ready to begin 
celebrating Mass, he, presumably for the reason that they have no 
room in the Monastery with closets enough to hold all the pieces of 
vestments he robes himself with, comes into the church with, what I 
suppose is called, a surplice on for an outer garment. He goes to a 
throne on the Gospel side of the altar and sits down preparatory to 
robing himself. On Easter Sunday, 1901, it took him fifteen minutes, 
and on Pentecost Sunday the same year it took him also fifteen min- 
utes to complete his robing, while on Pentecost Sunday, 1902, it did 
not take him so long as that, according to my note books. This is 
what I entered in my note book after I got home from Mass on Pen- 
tecost Sunday, 1902. "It took the Abbot just ten minutes to-day to 
robe for Mass. He sat down on his throne at 10.01^ and at 10:11^ he 
staff in hand and went to the altar. There were about twelve persons, 
who had pieces of vestments for him. They stood in a row facing 
him on his throne, and as soon as one had given his piece to the mas- 
ter of ceremonies, to give to the Abbot to put on, he would bow to the 
Abbot and go away." Book P, page 72. Whether it was due to the 
master of ceremonies or not, I do not know why it should have taken 
the Abbot fifteen minutes to robe in 1901 and only ten minutes in 
1902, for I timed him by the same watch. There were Protestants, 
whom I knew, present on all of these occasions, and it appeared to 
me, the way they watched the Abbot and the supernumaries around 
him, that they must have seen a "spectacle," otherwise they would not 



98 

have "rubber-necked" so. I will not recount all the performances that 
are gone through during a Mass celebrated by a Bishop or an Abbot. 
There is too much incense swinging, bowings, embracings, etc., to go 
into the details of in a Pontifical High Mass, so I will quote the men- 
tion made of such a Mass that you may see whether it is a spectacle 
or not: 

"Easter at the Cathedral. Archbishop Officiates at the Pon- 
tifical High Mass. The Easter celebration at St. Cathedral last 

Sunday was marked by the splendor and magnificence usual on such 
a memorable feast day. * * * Father , pastor of the cathe- 
dral, was the assistant priest of the Mass, and the deacons of honor 

were Fathers and . The Rev. was deacon and the Rev. 

sub-deacon. The Rev. was the cross-bearer. Father 

acted as master of ceremonies and Father as assistant master of 

ceremonies. * * * The vestments of the Archbishop were white 
and gold. The music, as befits so great a religious feast, was of a 
most elaborate character." 53: April 9, 1902. 

It may be seen by counting the dashes that there were eight 
priests, beside other supernumaries, assisting the Archbishop in cele- 
brating Mass. It is about the same here when the Abbot celebrates 
Mass. Now, all this is no "mere spectacle," Oh, no! It is the Pro- 
testant service of songs that are understood and that touch the heart; 
a prayer that is also understood, and a sermon on our duty to God and 
our fellow-men, which inspires one to a Christ-like life that is a 
"gratuitous insult to God, * * * a form of worship believed to be 
heretical" a'nd which is reduced to the "level of a mere spectacle." 
63:172-173. Which of the two services just described is such? a. f. y. 
Have I turned the tables on the Church when she says that Protestant 
service is a "gratuitous insult to God, * * * a form of worship 
believed to be heretical," and which is reduced to the "level of a mere 
spectacle?" a. f. y. Which form of worship is the more likely to be 
"heretical," the Catholic's or the Protestant's, according to this: 
"Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns and spiritual canticles, 
singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord." Eph. 5:19. 
Which is the more likely to be a "gratuitous insult to God," to have 
free admission to the Protestant Church on Easter Sunday, or to pay 
twenty -five cents admission to a cathedral on Easter Sunday or else 
stay out, and where the program is published, in the daily papers, of 
the music that is of a "most elaborate character," and which draws 



99 

enough of non-Catholics to crowd the building to the doors? a. f. y. 
Now, this is a fact that at a cathedral in a large cit}' this was done. 
No one could get into the cathedral on Easter Sunday for High Mass 
unless one paid twenty-five cents admission. One could not even get 
inside the church to stand up unless one paid twenty-five cents. 

One time on one of these occasions a poor old man wanted to 
enter the church, but because he had no quarter of a dollar he was 
refused admittance. He said, then, that he would have to miss Mass, 
as he had no twenty-five cents with him. He was told, by the door- 
keeper, that he should have gone to a Low Mass and he could have 
gotten in free. 

Does this look like the Church is the friend of the poor man, 
as she claims? Is this no insult to God to refuse the poor old man 
admittance to His house of worship, when Jesus said: "As long as 
you did it unto one of these my least brethren, you did it to me?" 
Matt. 25:40. Have the poor no right to hear music of the "most 
elaborate character," because they ha^e not the money to pay the 
price of admission to God"s house. Would Jesus have done that, 
refused a poor old man, or in fact any one else, admission to His 
Church unless they had the price, were He on earth to-day? If He 
would not have refused, can it be said, then, that the Catholic Church 
of to-day is the Church He established? Well, by the time I am 
through with examining and analyzing her remaining doctrines I 
believe it will be ajjparent to you that she is no more the church that 
Christ and the Apostles established on this earth than is the Protest- 
ant Church. Let us see what more the Church has to say about the 
Mass and its concomitants. I want to make my word good which I 
made in the beginning of this chapter that I intend to "pulverize' 
the subject under consideration. 

"The holy sacrifice of the Mass is in its nature ever the same 
* * * whether celebrated with singing and many assistants at the 
altar, (High Mass, grand High Mass,) or quietly without singing and 
with only one or two assistants, (Low Mass.)" 5:94;i. If this is true 
why does the priest charge five dollars for a Requiem High Mass? 
He pays the organist only a dollar for playing the organ and the 
school children do the singing for nothing. This, then, leaves four 
dollars for a Mass that at the most does not last over an hour. Why 
then do they make such a charge for a High Mass for the dead when 
for a Low Mass the charge is one dollar if the ""Mass in its nature is 



'Lof 



w. 



100 

ever the same? Is that not bartering holy things to put a stipulated 
price on them and if the price is not paid one must do without them? 
It will not do to say that the priests must live, therefore they must 
make these stipulated charges, laid down by the Bishop "as a general 
rule for all," for they get a fixed salary that often exceeds that of many 
laboring people who support families, and who pay priests for these 
things, and these laboring people have not made "vows of poverty" 
either, as priests are supposed to have made. Was the priest very far 
wrong when speaking of his fellow priests'? He said: "As a whole, 
we have become tainted. , Money — the love of which is the root of all 
evil — and the comfort and ease of this world's goods, which have cor- 
rupted to a greater or less extrent the whole American people, have 
also tainted us?" (28:128). A. f. y. The Church helps out the priests 
in gathering in the coin, by telling us that Mass "is our chief action 
upon purgatory" (11:403); that the Mass lightens the pains of the 
souls in purgatory," (65:22,) and that it is a "very laudable practice 
to have Mass offered up every week for a year," and "if your means 
allow it, have Mass said also at other times" (1:47, Aug. 1902) for the 
dead. Then she gives us an account of two voices crying up from 
purgatory where one says: "Oh, pity me, poor soul! I am nearly all 
deserted. * * * My body they put into a rich cofl&n, * * * 
but for my soul they will do nothing or hardly anything! The Mass 
on the funeral day, and two or three Masses afterwards, is all they 
have given me. * * * Ah, me! * * * 'Have pity on me, at 
least you my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me!' " 
The other one says: "Grod be praised! How happy am I! I was 
also condemned to suffer for many years; but my time is shortened. 

* * * A few days more, and I shall be released! God bless them! 

* * * With a true spirit of love and sacrifice, they are having a 
good number of Masses said for me. God has been pleased to accept 
their Good will: I will be freed so much the sooner! Only a few 
more Masses, so my guardian angel tells me, and the good God will 
take me to Heaven." 62:128-129. 

Now, who would not, who was blind and could therefore be easily 
"bumfoozled;" who had a departed dear one, after reading the fore- 
going, have as many Masses said as one's mean's possibly allowed for 
that departed one? It would, indeed, be a heartless person whose 
heart would not be touched at this and who would not have all the 
Masses said for the departed that one's means allowed. In this way, 



101 

then, the Church manages to receive the money for Masses for the 
dead, and also for other "intentions" which I have already stated they 
did, which amounts to millions of dollars annually. I know of cases 
where priests took money for Masses for the repose of the souls of 
the departed who had passed on over twenty-five, yea, even over 
thirty-five years ago. Some of these were not yet thirteen years old, 
innocent country children, when they passed on. Is it jjossible that 
children not yet thirteen years old, when they pass on, the good God 
will punish in purgatory, — the pains of which, according to theolo- 
gians, are "greater than all paing of earth put together," (11:380,) and 
when "barely an hour [in purgatory] seems to be thirty years," 
(65:52.) as for time there, — over twice the length of time of their 
sojourn on this plane of existence? "Oh," but [)robably it will be 
said, "the priest does not know how old the person was when one 
died, or how long one has been dead for whom he is offered money to 
say Mass." Yes; but can he not ask? They ask other questions. 
But this would not do, for if he were to ask those questions, and after 
having been told the facts, he would say, "Oh, I feel confident that 
the — less than thirteen year old — child is in Heaven long ago, you 
better keep the money and buy 'Marie' or 'Jimmie' a pair of new 
shoes with it," people might not have Masses said it thirty-five years 
after the death of the deceased parents of any one. That would 
never do. For how would they otherwise get the money to travel 
with and be present at corner-stone layings of Churches; jubilees of 
Church prelates; consecrations of Church dignitaries; funerals of 
Church-men, in different parts of the country? How could they, 
then, light one cigar after another? One time some one called to see 
me, who was smoking a cigar. He asked me if it were offensive, or 
would make me sicker, to smoke in my presence. That the cigar he 

was smoking Father had given him, for they had come to town 

together after a few hours driving, saying that "Father is a great 

smoker for he lights one cigar with the stub of the other." Now, the 
fellow who said this is a good "practical" Catholic, and did not mean 
the Father any harm, but simply remarked it as a person often-times 
will make innocent remarks. Of course, he did not know at the time 
that he was telling this to a "regular heretic" who was gathering 
material for this book. There, is, of course, this one way of the 
priests having a supply of cigars to smoke, and that is for non-users of 
tobacco to go to a church ice cream social, buy cigars from the young 



102 

ladies and, following their suggestions, give the cigars to the priest. 
At an ice cream social once, I was present, and two young ladies went 
among the men, with a box of cigars. They approached me asking me 
to buy some cigars. I told them that I did not smoke, when one of 

ladies said: "Oh, buy some anyway, and give them to Father ." 

You see, then, the priests might get cigars in this manner, should the 
revenue from paid Masses be cut off, and their salaries would not 
jvistify an expenditure in that direction. 

Speaking of "ice cream socials," their purpose reminds me of 
another feature connected with the Church in order to have a "meet" 
dwelling place for God, and which gives the unbelievers a pretext to 
harp on, that religion is only a scheme for money making, and that is 
the heavy indebtedness which usually overhangs the Church. In a 
daily paper of recent years, appeared this item: "The rate at which 

St. parish debt is decreasing is very gratifying to parishoners. 

January, 1890, the debt was $44,156.13, with an interest charge of 
$2,327.12. In January, 1899, the debt had been reduced to $27,420; 
interest, $1,430.50. In January, 1902, the debt had shrunk to $18,- 
492.17, with an annual interest charge of $850.84. At this rate the 
debt will soon be wiped out, although expensive improvements have 
been made right along." I am informed that the parish this has refer- 
ence to laid the corner-stone of its church in the latter '60s, and that 
it cost over $60,000. That the parish was small and poor then, whether 
it is rich now or not, matters not, but at the time that the building of 
the church was contemplated, the parish was opposod to such a mag- 
nificent church, and probably intimated it would not contribute 
towards building it, when the priest is reported to have said: "I will 
build this church even though you do not contribute one cent!" Well, 
the church was built. Now let us see what in interest alone has been 
paid since then, taking the figures from the above item, copied from a 
daily paper. We will say interest of $2,327.12 annually, began in 1868 
and down to 1890, would be 22 years at $2,327.12 for each year, although 
it must have been higher than this when it began, if the debt gradu- 
ally decreased until in 1890 it was $44,156.13, "with an interest charge 
of $2,327.12." Now, 22 times $2,327.12 is $51,196.64. Then from 1890 
to 1899 is 9 years, at $1,430.50, the lowest interest year, for each year 
would be $12,874.50, and from 1899 to 1902 is 3 years at $850.84, the 
lowest interest year, for each year, would be $2,452,52, or a total of 
$66,523.66. This is only for interest, and I believe no one will 



103 

question it if I say that the amount that has been paid is really over 
$75,000. 

Think of what a magnificent church $75,000 would build, yet 
there is nothing to show for this $75,000 that has been collected from 
the parishoners, and which was paid for interest! Is that the way to 
keep house, or as the Germans would say: "Thut mann denen weg 
hanshalten," (Does one this way keep house?) by paying out more for 
interest than the principal was originally? Is that the way to build 
up the kingdom of God on earth, and to honor Him, by building mag- 
nificent churches and burdening them with a debt so that "there is 
such a ding-dong about money that people get tired of it? One time 
a priest was asked how he liked his new parish, he having been trans- 
ferred from one to another. He said that at his former charge, which 
I am informed had qniie a little indebtedness in connection with it, 
'"there is such a ding-dong about money that people get tired of it, 
and that is why it is so hard to get the people to give anything, that 
one sometimes cannot sleep for the worry of not knowing how to meet 
this or that obligation." Well, this was too good for "'Judas" to let 
pass by, so down it went into my note book, as quick as I could get to 
it. Is this the way th^t God is honored by burdening parishes with 
debt so that "there is such a ding-dong about money that people get 
tired of it." by giving; Sunday concerts? "This evening the Young 

Ladies' Sodality of church will give a concert, the proceeds to 

be used for the benefit of the church" (57: Sunday, May 20, 1900: 
"Sacred Concert and Benediction, Dedication New Organ, Sunday 
Evening, December 1, 1901. * * * Admission 25 cents;" by giviug 

card parties with midnight dances? "St. parish euchre * * * 

fulfilled all the expectations of its promoters -■■ * "* The play was 
spirited from start to finish. * * * So well was the aft'air man- 
aged that by midnight nearly all the prizes had been distril)uted and 
the floor cleared for dancing (53:1902); by Sunday and holy-day 

fairs? "The fair for the benefit of St. church was successfully 

opened * * * on Sunday evening, October 20. The hall was 
crowded with parishoners. * * * A large and varied program has 
been arranged for every evening next week, till the closing evening 
Friday, November 1, the eve of All Soul's Day" (53: — ; [The eve of 
All Soul's is All Saint's Day, a holy-day of obligation;] by giving a 
series of card parties with valuable prizes? "Beginning with Wednes- 
day, November t>, and continuing every W^ednesday evening during 



104 

November, a series of euchres and receptions will be held in the hall 

connected with St. church. * * * Play will begin at 8:15, 

and valuable prizes will be given to the winners each evening. The 

pastor, , is confident of having a very large gathering. * * * 

The proceeds will be for the benefit of the church (53: — );" by the 
Bishops giving permission to have round dances — which the Church 
in the "Council of Baltimore jjrotests against" because she believes 
they are "highly indecent," (5:4,) obscene, impure" (7:90) — when the 
money from them goes into the treasury of the church? "The Bishop 
has been good to us, and has given us permission to have round 
dances, but we must keep from the hall all questionable characters." 
This was the announcement a priest made from the pulpit on the Sun- 
day of the week during which one evening of it a "grand social" for 
the yoi;ng people would be given and the notice of it in the Fair 
Dally stated "you know what that means," that is, the "grand social." 
Well, I climbed to the third story of a building once to see whether 
the young folks at one of these "grand socials" would dance at arms 
length or not, but I noticed that some embraced so tightly that if the 
young man had any cigars in his vest pocket at the time they would 
be too badly crushed to be smoked later, and their positions would 
have been an ideal one for the planting of health kisses of scientific 
value, lasting "one minute and seven seconds by Shrewsbury clock." 
14:421, Vol. 2. As to "questionable characters," I noticed many there 
who were at a dance given after a concert a short time before, and this 
dance was at a hall which had a saloon under it. But it is all right 
when the money received for the round dances goes into the treasury 
of the church, otherwise round dances are "highly indecent, obscene, 
imjjui-e," and the Church "protests against" them. On a program of 
twenty numbers of one of these "grand socials," there were but two 
Lanciers — square dances— and all the other numbers were the round 
dances which are "highly indecent, obscene, impure." for which the 
"Bishop has been" so good as to give his "permission to have them." 

Here is a description, by an ex-dancing master, of the so-called 
"highly indecent, obscene, impure," round dances for which the Bish- 
ops give permission to dance them when the money derived from them 
goes into the treasury of the church : 

"What lady would allow any man. in any other public place, 
except the ball room, to take the liberties with her tliat he takes there? 
Would a lady with a spark of self-resi^ect, at any other place, lay her 



105 

head upon his shoulder, place her breast against his, and allow him to 
encircle her waist with his arm, place his foot between hers and clasp 
her hands in his? This is the position assumed in waltzing, [and, I 
suppose, in most all of the round dances,] and I t«ll you, my friends, 
that such a position tends, in a greater or less degree to develop the 
lower nature of sexes. It cannot be otherwise It is in perfect accord- 
ance with nature. * * * It is a startling fact^ * * * ^\^g^i two- 
thirds of the girls who are ruined fall through the influence of dancing. 
* * * Let me give you two reasons why it is so. In the first place, 
I do not believe that any woman can or does waltz without being 
improperly aroused, too a greater or less degree. She may not, at first, 
understand her feelings, or recognize as harmful or sinful those emo- 
tions which must come to every woman who has a particle of warmth 
in her nature, when in such close connection with the opposite sex; 
[just like powder will burn when it comes close enough to the fire;] 
but she is, though unconsciously, none the less surely sowing seed 
which will one day ripen, if not into open sin and shame, into a nature 
more or less depraved and health more or less impaired. And any 
woman with a nature so cold [like wet powder would bfe to the fire,] 
as not to be aroused by the perfect execution of the waltz, is entirely 
unfit to make any man happy as his wife." 178:38-22. Is it not an 
insult to Grod to say that the Catholic Church is the Church estab- 
lished by Christ and the apostles when she is guilty of those practices 
of which I have accused her? Would Jesus give permission to have 
anything that is "highly indecent, obscene, impure," as just described 
because the money derived from such a source would go into the 
treasury of His Church? a. f. y. 

The Church knows she has made a mistake in promulgating a 
protest against round dances, but she dares not recede from the step 
she took in the Council of Baltimore, where this protest was made, 
because it would destroy her claim to infallibility. I have this from a 
priest, years ago. when talking about the subject of round dances. 
Yet we are so biiml and believe — or at least pretend to believe — that 
the Church is "supernaturally" preserved from error and therefore 
cannot err. and is infallible, is not a "human creation" (2:40) like the 
Protestant Church is. The Church is setting good examples, indeed, 
which will induce the "separated brethren" to return to her fold. I 
know personally over twenty-five former Catholics who are Cathelics 
no longer, and of but ten conversions to the Church, and the most of 



106 

these became Catholics in order to marry Catholics. In an article 
entitled "Catholic Leakage"' it says. "Ten millions lost to the Chuach 
in this country" and it gives "A terrible arraignment that finds its 
genesis in the indifference or carelessness of Catholic parents in mat- 
ters of faith," and it further says: "For us who have been accustomed 
to glory in the spread of our faith in this western world, who point 
with pride to an increase in our number such as no denomination can, 
who show others with no little satisfaction our beautiful churches, 
schools, institutions of charity, it is not pleasant reading to be told 
that with all of our advance and increase we are still far behind what 
the Lord has a right to expect of us." 16: May 2, 1902. 

We may ask, Why is there this "indifference or carelessness," and 
why are we "still far behind wliat the Lord has a right to expect of 
us?" Are not the practices, for which I have arraigned the Church, 
as much the cause for it as anything else? This practice of burden- 
ing the Church with such a debt that she must resort to almost any 
and all schemes to raise money to meet her obligations, and this "ding- 
dong about money" is not very alluring to reasonable, thinking and 
observing people. And this state of affairs seems to exist almost 
everywhere where there are Catholics. "Last Sunday the — Fathers 
* * * made a strong appeal to their parishoners to the special col- 
ection they are to make on the tirst Sunday of every month to lessen 
the debts of the church, which amount to nearly §100,000," "Each 

month a special collection is taken up at St. church * * * 

for the reduction of the church debt." The Fathers are making 

preparations to hold a grand fair for the benefit of the church in the 
near future. The Fathers hope to be able, by means of the fair, to pay 
off a large portion of the debt of $96,000 which rests upon the church"" 
"The annual statement of the church, just announced, shows advance- 
ment along all lines. The total receipts during the year were S18,271. 
The expenses for the year were $17,429.87. After paying S1.500 of 
the church debt * * * the total church debt is now $65,400 * * * 
The debt has been steadily and rapidly reduced." "The Rev. Father 

* * «- issued the annual report of the parish on Sunday. It 

showed that $-4,500 had been paid of the debt of $82,000, leaving a 
balance of $77,000. (^ver $2,000 was paid on the interest * * * 
The receipts for the year amounted to over $15,000. The expenditures 
were within two dollars of this sum." "A second mortgage of $16,000 
was cancelled last week and the document publicly burned before the 



107 

celebration of the High Mass on last Sunday * * * St. 

church is one of the handsomest churches in the^city * * * The 
altar is of carved wood, and over it is a group of marble statuary rep- 
resenting the Holy Family. Last there was a debt to meet of 

$170,000. Of this there was a second mortgage of $16,000, bearing 6 
per cent, interest. That part of it has been wiped out." Now, let the 
Church, with such a showing, go to a non-Catholic man who earns 
fifteen dollars a week; or ten dollars a week, or two dollars a daj-. with 
no steady employment; or a "dollar and a dime'" — as a woman cus- 
tomer once told me, that she had to buy as economically as possible, 
because, she said, "My husband is a railroader who gets only a dollar 
and a dime a day" — a day with a family to support. Would this be 
very alluring to them? Do you believe that there would be any 
■■grand rush" to embrace a religion which — with its mistaken idea of 
what place should be made "meet" for an abiding place for God — 
builds magnificent churches, as an abiding place for God, [although He 
"dwelleth not in temples made with hands""] (Acts 17:24.) and burdens 
them with debt so that there is such a "ding-dong about money" in order 
to meet her obligations? And then when the parishoners have contrib- 
uted all they could afford, be lectured for not contributing more, as a 
priest once did, so that one of the parishoners remarked in my hear- 
ing after High Mass, "I knew what was coming, because my folks, 
who had been to an early Mass, told me of it." One would think that 
a priest was a sort of a public steward who had been placed over mat- 
ters of finance, rather than as a shepherd over spiritual matters. One 
time I went specially to a "church, where a priest was to bid adieu to 
his parishoners, it having been announced in the papers that he was 
to leave and that a certain Sunday would be his last one at that church. 
I had heard that he was a fine speaker and as I had never heard him 
speak I went to his church for the purjjose of hearing his farewell 
sermon. Well, another i^riest said Mass and read the Gospel and 
Epistle for the Sunday. After he finished reading the announce- 
ments, the Gospel, and Epistle, he sat down. The priest who was to 
leave then made his appearance and I expected we would hear some- 
thing that would fire our hearts with the Christ spirit, and that he 
would tell us how many who had wandered in the dark mazes of 
Protestantism, before his advent in the parish, had found their way to 
the bright light of Catholic truth, and that the spirit of fellowship 
had been greatly increased, and that they should continue in this 



108 

manner, etc., etc. How I was disappointed. Instead of an eloquent 
sermon on spiritual piatters, not a word was said about it, but on the 
contrary the substance of his "last appeal" to the parishoners was that 
they should pay up what they owed for subscriptions, school, etc., even 
if they had to borrow the money with which to do that, so that he 
could turn over his books with a desirable showing to his successor. 
Not a word was said about their spiritual accounts, or that they should 
strive to become more and more Christ-like, etc. To me it seemed a 
very poor hour and ten minutes, — for the Protestants who were there, 
— spent in "divine worship," aud in the inculcating of the Christ spirit 
and life, — yea, even so for Catholics. After making his "last api^eal" 
he, with a young man who had a tablet and a pencil in his hands, 
went among those present in the church, during the progress of the 
Mass, in which, as the Church teaches, "the blood of Jesus is shed" 
(81:365) — hence another tragedy of Calvary — and said something to 
them after which they would make answer and then, turning to the 
the young man, said something to him who then wrote something on 
his tablet. 

Think of anyone going among the spectators at the time of the 
solemn act of Calvary, over eighteen hundred years ago, with a sub- 
scription list for money! Yet that was done in the Chiirch which is 
sujjposed to be the Church established by the One who was the cen- 
tral figure of that tragedy ! How long, O my people, will you yet keep 
your eyes closed, and allow yourselves to be led about by this Church, 
which, no doubt, has appeared to you ere this, and will be still further 
proved, is just as much a "human creation" as is the Protestant 
Church? Exercise yoiir God-given faculties of reason, intellect, or 
understanding, and common sense ! Do not be a Luther, who rejected 
"reason, carnal arguments, common sense, and mathematical proofs," 
(15:455,) or a Christian Scientist, with whom the "intellect is a de- 
throned king!" 58:188 Nov. 22, 1900. Is it not a "human invention" 
when the Church tells us that an "act of virtue" for the whole month 
of November is to "collect alms from your friends and relations to get 
Masses celebrated for the dead?" 65:68. Why does not the Church 
practice an "act of virtue" for a mouth, and celebrate gratuitously the 
Masses asked of her to be celebrated for a month? Surely, jwverty- 
vowed ambassadors of Christ ought to be willing to do what the now- 
poverty-vowed laity is asked to do. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

The Church savs: "One must take no food at all from midnight 



109 

till the time of receiving. [Communion.] This law is made for the 
sake of due reverence." [45:100. I thought God entered the heart, 
but according to this He must enter the stomach, therefore it must be 
empty when God enters it, for if it were filled with rot-gut whiskey, 
stale beer, sour wine, Limburger cheese and onions, it indeed would 
not be a very pleasant environment even for a man, let alone a God, 
and it would be showing lack of "due reverence," if it were not empty. 
When a man has to be made fit, by law, in order to partake of the 
Lord's Supper, he had better stay away from it altogether, had he not? 
Is not this law of the Church that "one must take no food at all from 
midnight till the time of receiving," a "human creation," when at the 
Last Supper the disciples of Jesus were eating," (Matt. 26:21,) and it 
was not what Judas ate, but the evil he had in his heart that brought 
condemnation on him? I know of cases that where people went to 
Communion and had to fast so long that they fainted and then would 
be sickly and feeble for the remainder of the day and be unfit for the 
ordinary duties of life. Jesus came to give us health of body and 
soul, not to cause us sickness. "I am doctoring for the same trouble 
[stomach] now. Ever since Easter I am not well. Certain things I 
eat do not agree with me, but that comes from fasting, it ruins my 

stomach. Our Rector, Father , often told me not to fast, that I 

should give alms instead." Extract from a private letter. Now, this 
person is a wage earner, and probably had nothing to spare for alms 
so kept the fast, because the Church enjoins one or the other during 
Lent. The result is the poor person has been made sick by that very 
Church which, if Christ established her, should make one whole. Is 
this, then, not another species of "human invention?" a. f. y. The 
Church says: "It [the Host] is the same body in which, for the sins 
of men. He suffered cold and nakedness, hunger and thirst, fatigue 
and privation of all kinds, and finally death on the cross." 6:43. Now, 
Jesus was thirty-three years old when he was crucified, and then think 
of swallowing a Man who is thirty-three years old! Does He go into 
the mouth and stomach head or feet first, or sideways, or criss-crossed, 
or doubled up, or how? That he goes into the stomach cannot be 
questioned, for the appearance of bread yet remains when he. is washed 
down with a table spoon full of water. Since I have had to receive 
Communion lying in bed, the priest always gives me a table spoon full 
of water immediately after receiving the Eucharist— the baked dough 
God — and I would wash Him down. Of course, as the heart is in 



110 

close relationship with the stomach — for it must be so, for how other- 
wise could a woman "reach a man's heart through his stomach?" — he 
will probably not find much difficulty in getting there. Then imagine 
yourself, a finite creature containing "whole and entire" (13:73) the 
Infinite Creator; a human soul "consuming" — that is what a ijriest 
said at a Forty Hour' exposition of the Blessed Sacrament — God. 
"He has given us Himself for food as nourishment for the soul that 
we may consume Him." You may think I have distorted his words 
because they are not to be had in print, but is not the import of the 
following identical with his words, though expressed in different 
words? "My soul, thou art about to feed upon the blessed body of 
Jesus. And hast thou well considered what thou art, and who God is?" 
49:217. How would you "feed" on a spring chicken unless you "con- 
sumed it?" 

I suppose I have about tired you with the subject under consid- 
eration in this chapter, and will therefore close it by looking at one 
more phase of it, and that is, why do we not receive a testimony here 
as a proof that the Mass is, as the Church would have us believe it is, 
the only "offering worthy of God," (-49:57,) and the "most holy and 
satutary of all Divine Services, and that in which the Most High is 
honored in the most worthy manner?" 30:212. Surely, if there is 
any place where God ought to give a testimony of anything in order 
to inspire faith in the promises of Jesus, in His existence, and that 
our petitions will ever be heard, it ought to be here and not in the 
world to come. The first year I came here, during my illness, my 
people had Masses said for me for my recovery. How many they had 
said for me I do not know, but that they had them said for me I know 
for a certainty, because one day the priest called to see me, and just 
before leaving he said that he would to-morrow say a Mass again for 
me. Now at that time I had not yet read the book called "The Prodi- 
gal Son," the reading of which was the entering wedge that started 
me to question or doubt the teachings of the Catholic Church, yet 
instead of benefiting me I grew worse gradually. Now, why was this 
so? If it is said that it was not God's will that I should get well, — 
for If I had gotten well at that time, as the result of those Masses, I 
would certainly be to-day as good and practical a Catholic as I was 
up to my thirty-seventh year of age — then God, if he is omniscient, 
and foreknows all things, must have known that I would one day 
assail and arraign His supposed Church and His Word — the Bible. 



Ill 

Can either alternative be taken, and it be still said that the Mass is 
really what the Church claims for it? Or is the Mass in reality what 
I have analyzed it to be, namely, a species of error, blindness, idola- 
try and blasphemy, and that God wanted it to be known as such? a. f. 
y. I know of another instance where the Mass has been inefficacious, 
and that is that it did not bring down the blessings expected it would. 
One day I overheard some one, a farmer, say that there would be Mass 
for him on a certain day, during the rogation days, that God would 
bless his crops, and that at the time he had good prospects of a yield 
of three hundred crates of a certain product. Well, when the harvest 
season for this product had been closed, I hapi^ened to see him, and I 
asked him purposely — for I knew that there had been a deficiency of 
rainfall at the critical time for his product, and I was then already 
gathering material for this work — how many crates his product yielded 
him. He said one hundred and twenty-five. I then asked him how 
this happened since he, at one time, expected a yield of three hundred 
crates. He said, "because there was not enough rain." 

We have, then, two instances which prove that the Mass is of no 
effect, except to draw money from the laity as "honorariums" for the 
Church. If there was any spiritual value in the Mass and it frees 
from the pains of purgatory, then why do not the priests apply it to 
themselves when in ill health? 

"The Rev. Father , of St. church * * * has gone to 

Germany to take the mud baths for his health. He is a sufferer from 
rheumatism, and two years ago found temporary relief from his ail- 
ment in the mud baths of Germany. 53: Jan. 8, 1902. One would 
think that a priest who can make the "celestial God" from the "shine 
of the earth," and who can say Masses that will release the "beloved 
spouses of Christ," (1:69, Nov., 1902,) from Purgatory, and who has 
"all the heavenly powers" (H6:38) conferred upon him, ought to be 
able to heal himself, or get a fellow priest to do it by saying Christ's 
words "Arise and walk," or "Be thou made whole," as readily as 
Christ's (words "This is ray body" makes a "celestial God" from the 
"shine of the earth." or as readily as Christ's words, in tlie confes- 
sional, "Thy sins are forgiven thee" cancels a "whole life of iniquity 

and rebellion." 7:393. Is not that so? a. f. y. "The Rev. died 

* * * at the rectory attached to St. church. * * * Father 

had suffered from heart trouble for nearly forty years."' 53:Mar. 

5, 1W2. "The Rev. * * * died * * * after a three weeks 



112 

illness of pneumonia. He was thirty-three years old." 53: — 1902. 

"The Rev. * * * died. * * * Father had been 

bravely battling with failing health for nearly two years. * * * was 
born * * * in 1869." 53: — 1902. From this it may be seen, then, 
that the priests do die young, and linger a long time before they die, 
yet they can not help one another, still they will take money for saying 
Masses for the sick laity or for the "beloved spouses of Christ" in 
purgatory. Ought not this to be an eye-opener for the blind and un- 
thinking, who have taken their religion, tied up in parcels, and in 
connection with taking it have been told to believe it without question 
or else be damned? a. f. y. 

It may now be asked, if the Mass, with its rites and ceremonies, 
is nothing but an error, etc., whence the origin for all of this? Here 
is the answer: "The late Abbe Hue pointed out the similarities be- 
tween the Buddhist and the Roman Catholic ceremonials with such a 
naivete, that, to his surprise, he found his delightful 'Travels in Thi- 
bet, placed on the 'Index.' 'One can not fail being struck," he writes, 
'with th^ir great resemblance with the Catholicism. The Bishop's 
crosier, the mitre, the dalmatis, the round hat that the great lamas 
wear in travel * * * the Mass, the double choir, the psalmody, 
the exorcisms, the censer with five chains to it, opening and shutting 
at will, the blessings of the lamas, who extend their right hands over 
the head of the faithful ones, the rosary, the celibacy of the clergy, 
the penances and retreats, the cultus of the saints, the fasting, the 
processions, the litanies, the holy water; such are the similarities of 
the Buddhists with ourselves." 67:345, Vol. 2. And does not Budd- 
hism antedate Christianity ? It Avas in their zeal for Christianity that 
the Church incorporated in her worship rites and ceremonies of the 
non-Christians, to satisfy them for the time being, believing that in 
time these rites and ceremonies would be purged from the Church, 
when its members should have advanced enough to be ready for the 
meat, giving up then the milk, — rites and ceremonies, — but instead of 
this result the rites and ceremonies have become, apparently, incorpo- 
rated in the Catholic Church to siich a degree that the older she 
becomes the more are they added to, until they have really stifled and 
buried the spirit of true Christianity. In another chapter I will make 
this fact apparent to you that new devotions — which hecessarily 
implies the addition of new rites and ceremonies — are introduced into 
the Church from time to time, and this is the reason that I have stated 



113 

a number of times, so confidently, that the Catholic Church is as much 
a "human creation" as is the Protestant Church, which she says it is. 
It was this attempt to conciliate non-Christian converts, by adopting 
their ideas, and rites and ceremonies, mentioned above, that led Faus- 
tus to say to Augustine, "You have substituted your agape for the 
sacrifices of the pagans- for their idols your martyrs, whom you serve 
with the very same honors. * * * Nothing distinguishes you from 
the pagans, except that you hold your assemblies apart from them." 
68:48. Is that not about true, of the Church substituting for pagan 
idols, her martyrs and saints, according to the following? "Pope 
Boniface IV. first suggested the celebration of this festival, [All 
Saints] when in 610 he ordered that the Pantheon, a pagan temple at 
Rome, dedicated to all the gods, should be converted into a Christian 
church, and the relics of the saints, dispersed through the different 
Roman cemeteries, taken up and placed therein. He then dedicated 
the Church to the honor of the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs." 
5:905. Then the Church in Holy Week says; "Let us pray. Almighty 
and everlasting Grod! who seekest not the death of sinners; mercifully 
hear our pjayers, and deliver them [Pagans, Heretics, etc.] from the 
worship) of idols." 69:365. Make your own comment on that. What 
is the burning of "incense before the relics of the Saints," (36:89,) 
and before the altars, but a relic of paganism? The Church's own 
writers speak of it when they say that the "pagan nations offered 
incense" to "idols of wood and stone." 70: IX. To me now, since I 
liave discerned the error, the ceremonies and rites in connection with 
the Mass and Benediction, upon an impartial and unprejudiced con- 
templation of them, appear to me plainly as oidy a relic of ante- 
Christian, blindness, idolatry, and superstition. And now that we 
have discovered the error, is it wise to still propagate it in defiance of 
reason, intellect and conamon sense? I w-as just as much in error up 
to my thirty-seventh year of age, and if any one had then told me, 
without giving me an analysis of it, that I was in error, and that I was 
blind, I would have resented such an accusation, while now I see 
plainly the truth of it. Let us, then; acknowledge our error, for therein 
is strength while to defend it is weakness. We need not fear the 
sneers, ridicules, and "I told you sos ' of the infidel, atheist, or agnos- 
tic evolutionists, scientists or philosophers, for by the time I will get 
through with them they will have no more left to boast about than 
you have. And when the score is even, then why should not all of us 



114 

extend the forgiving hand, bury the unpleasant past, by relegating it 
to oblivion, and live in unity, peace and good-will now end in the 
future? I hope I have satisfied any impartial, unprejudiced and fair 
mind of the reasonable certainty of my views, — on the subjects con- 
sidered so far, in this book, — as being true. If I have, then, I believe 
I have brought all of you, Catholics, non-Catholics and unbelievers, 
one step nearer together than you have been in the past. The next 
great barrier which stands in the way of a union of Catholics and the 
"separated brethren" is, I believe, the invocation of the Blessed Virgin 
and the saints. That we will, then, next consider. 



CHAPER IV 



INVOCATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE SAINTS. 

As I stated in the previous chapter that the invocation of the 
Blessed Virgin and the saints, and especially that of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, stands in the way of a union between the Catholic Oliurch and 
the separated brethren, I will quote a Catholic writer who, it may be 
seen, verifies what I said. He says: '"Devotion to Our Blessed Lady 
is one of the bxigbears which has kept many well-intentioned persons 
on the threshold of the Church for a long time." 53: Nov. 7, 1900. 
If there were nothing else to do it, the doctrine alone of the invoca- 
tion of the Blessed Virgin would put me outside of the pale of the 
Church. For thoughts came to me in connection with it, and which 
will be given later, which makes it an impossibility for me to believe 
any longer that the Blessed Virgin hears or knows of the petitions 
addressed to her. The Church presents various arguments in support 
of the belief that the Blessed Virgin and the saints are made cognizant 
of the petitions addressed to them, even though they are not omni- 
present to us. We will see first what these arguments are before I 
will give the thoughts that come to me, and which have completely 
destroyed the faith in me that any being, excepting God, can hear the 
many petitions addressed to them. As the Blessed Virgin and the 
saints are finite beings they can, therefore, not be omnipresent to us, 
and not being omnipresent it has always been one of the questions 
with non-Catholics how any can hear our prayers when addressed to 
them, and they not be omnipresent. 

Not taking into consideration that the praying to any, excepting 
God, shows a lack of confidence and child-like trust in the promises 
of Jesus when He said: "Amen, amen, I say to you: if you ask the 
Father anything in my name. He will give it you," (John, 16:23,) we 
will look at one of the arguments of the Church in which she tries to 
solve the difl&culty of how the saints,— which includes, in one sense of 
the word, the Blessed Virgin, — are made cognizant of the the peti- 
tions addressed to them, although not omnipresent or omniscient. To 
the question, "But since the saints are not omniscient, can they hear 
our lirayers?" the Church answers: "They need not be omniscient to 



116 

know for what we pray. Cannot God make known to them our cares? 
* * * We need not be anxious with regard to the manner in which 
the saints become cognizant of our prayers, since God has a thousaad 
ways by which to make our needs known to them." 5:605. According 
to this, God is an indifferent and arbitrary being, because He will not 
grant our petitions without iirst making the saints "cognizant of our 
prayers," and "make our needs known to them," so that they will — on 
being made "cognizant of our prayers," and "our needs" have been 
made "known to them" — stop, for the time being, their playing on 
golden harps and their constant singing of "Holy, holy, holy," (4:8,) 
and get on their knees before the throne of God and praying about as 
follows: "O most merciful and loving God! who, 'even should a 
mother forget her own child,' (7:271,) wouldst not forget Thy chosen 
servant, grant him his 'needs,' which are wisdom, guidance and preser- 
vation from error, that he may have an eagle eye with which to discern 
and to interpret Thy Word according to the sense of Thy Church. 
That he may know that Christ is not put on except by the frequenta- 
tion of the Eucharistic table, and by consuming Thee whole and 
entire, and by feeding on Thy blessed body! O God, will Thou not 
please grant him his 'needs' which Thou hast made known to us, for 
if Thou dost not grant them Thy servant may become a 'regular here- 
tic' and begin to believe that Christ is put on through the operation 
of the mind by an act of the will ! O God, allow Thyself to be 'influ- 
enced' (11:420,) and grant him his 'needs," " etc, etc. [If I am a 
little "ironical" in this, I am only reflecting the image and likeness of 
the Catholic God, who, when He said: "Behold, Adam is become like 
one of us,'" said this "ironically.'"] 7:37. Now, what would you think 
of a God who acted in this manner? who would not grant "our needs" 
without first making them known to the saints and then have them 
intercede for us? Is this not an absurdity, and an impeachment of 
God's character, in the face of His promises made through His Son, 
Jesus Christ, ( John^l6:23,) and in the face of the parable of the Prodi- 
gal Son? What would you think of a people whose king sent his son 
amongst them to tell them that if they would ask him anything in his 
son's name he would|give it to them, they would instead appeal to the 
king's attendants to intercede for them? Would it not show lack of 
confidence in the son'sjpromises, and also impeach the king's mercy 
by believing he wasjnot the same measure of mercy for his subjects a« 
his attendants have ?J^ And is it not sufficient when Jesus said we maj 



117 

have anything we ask the Father for if we ask it in Jesus' name ? There 
was no proviso or condition connected with Jesus' promise, excei:)ting 
that we placed implicit confidence in His promises. There was noth- 
ing said about what state one was in. All one had to do, when one 
had turned away from God by doing evil, was to return to Him direct 
and not through an intercessor, just as the Prodigal Son was received 
by his father without an intercessor. This teaching of the Blessed 
Virgin and the saints having more love and solicitude for us than God 
has, impeaches His love and i^rovidence for us, does it not? a. f. y. 

We will now look at another ai'gument of the Church of how 
the Blessed Virgin "knows the prayers and wants of those who call 
upon her," which is an explanation given by Catholic theologians '"to 
satisfy an intelligent mind," and is this: "Those who enjoy the Vis- 
ion of God ("which is called the Beatific Vision") see and know all 
things 'in 'the mirror of the Trinity' — that is, in Gofl'.s seeing and 
knowing: because they see His essence, and His knowledge is one 
thing with that." 35:168-164 

According to this, God is a sort of a changeable 'being, like the 
animal which can change its spots, who, at one time is a Vision which, 
by looking at it. causes such ecstas}' that it makes the hosts of heaven 
sing continually, "Holy, holy, holy," and at another time He is a 
mirror" in which the hosts of heaven "see and know all things," 
which, I suppose includes "How the Other Half Lives," "Darkest 
London," "Chicago After Dark." and the Bishop's permitted "highly 
indecent, obscene, impure" round dances when \he money derived 
from them goes into the treasury of the Church. As to "seeing and 
knowing; because they see His essence," they must have greater 
"heavenly iDOwers" than is that of the priests on earth, who could not 
see in my "essence" the condition of mind, and who since 1899 have 
been administering rites and sacraments to me which my mind showed 
were errors, but which I let them perform over me, in order to keep 
the minds of my people at ease, although at times I could liardly com- 
pose myself, so that I would have to think of some incident in my 
life that caused me the greatest sorrow so as to suppress my humor in 
seeing" the priests, in my room, genuflect before a piece of baked dough 
— a wafer God. What sort of a heaven would that be for its hosts if 
they saw and knew all that takes place in this "vale of tears?" To me 
it would be anything else but a heaven. But supposing, now, that we 
admit the two foregoing views as i^ossible, that of God having '"a 



118 

thousand ways by whicli to make our needs known to them," and that 
they "see and know all things 'in the mirror of the Trinity.' " The 
following, however, which is the thought that came to me in connec- 
tion with the subject under consideration, and which I already stated 
I would mention later, will hardly be admitted as possible, and that is 
that there are so many petitions addressed to the Blessed Virgin that 
no being except God Almighty can possibly hear them. Here is the 
way I was led to the discovery of that fact, mentioned above, that 
after the discovery was made I could no longer pray to anyone except 
God Almighty. There are supposed to be 250,000,000 Catholics in the 
world and of this number we will say — after allowing six out of ten 
for poor Catholics and children who are not old enough to pray — 
there are 100,000,000 "practical" Catholics who say at least one Hail 
Mary a day. A Hail Mary can not be said with any devotion in less 
than ten seconds of time, which would then make 1,000,000,000 sec- 
onds of time of prayers offered every twenty -four hours. Now of the 
one hundred millions we will say that one-half of them, or fifty mill- 
ions, — -which is getting pretty low in numbers — recite three Hail 
Marys daily, which would make, after deducting one Hail Mary and 
putting it in the one hundred million class, another billion seconds of 
time of prayers, or two billion so far. Then we will say that of all the 
Catholics in the world, only two million, besides saying the three Hail 
Marys already mentioned, say the Rosary daily — although I know 
many who say it more than once daily — and as a Rosary contains at 
least fifty-three Hail Marys it cannot be recited, with any devotion, in 
less than five hundred seconds — eight and one-third minutes — we have 
have another billion, or three billion seconds of time of prayers. Now, 
if we take the scatterings of prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin, 
such as the Angelus, extra Rosarys, litanies, offices of the sisters, etc., 
the world over, it will easily make another billion, or all told four 
billions of seconds of time of prayers that She would have to listen 
to every day of twenty-four hours of eighty-six tnousand and four 
hundred seconds. If, now, we divide four billions by 86,400 we get a 
quotient of 46,296. Therefore, if the Blessed Virgin should hear all 
the prayers addressed to Her, even at the low estimate I made, She 
woiild have to listen to 46,296 petitions every second of time from one 
end of the year to the other, or, in other words, have to listen to 46,296 
petitions at one and the same time, at once, simultaneously. Can 
any being, excepting God Almighty, do that? Why, it is an utter 



119 

impossibility, is it not, for a finite being, although glorified, to listen to 
46,296 petitions at once, simultaneously. Now, what becomes of the 
Church's arguments that "God has a thousand ways by which to make 
our needs known to them," and that in the "mirror of the Trinity" the 
Blessed Virgin can "see and know all things?" Has not the "arms of 
the intellect" here completely demolished, pulverized, the arguments 
of the Church? 

Will any one, after reading this, pray to any one except to God 
Himself? Not even so much as to pray to Jesus, but pray as Jesus 
said we should, and as the apostles prayed? Surely, if any one ought 
to have known that it would be proper to pray to any one but to God, 
St. Peter should have known it, and yet how did he pray? "And now, 
Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto Thy servants, that 
with all confidence they may speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thy 
hand to cures, and signs, and wonders, to be done by the name of Thy 
holy Son Jesus." Acts, 4:29-30. Why did not St. Peter, as the 
Church does, pray to Jesus, if He is God, and He had sojourned with 
Peter on earth and made him his Vicar to teach and guard and inter- 
pret His Word? Did he show disrespect to Jesus, after having been 
His intimate companion and friend on earth while He was here, by 
ignoring Him as a God and praying to the God that is, and the one 
to whom Jesus said we should pray? Undoubtedly not, but Peter 
understood and knew from what Jesus had taught him that God alone 
was to be i^rayed to and not to Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the saints. 
Surely, if Jesus had such great love for us and the Apostles, as the 
Gospels record, while He was on earth. He certainly retained that love 
for them after He ascended into heaven, and if the Blessed Virgin 
and the Saints "now love us more than ever" they did while on earth 
and that tlierefore they now "show their love by praying for us," 
(5:606.) would Jesus not have the same love for His apostles and 
would have prayed for them had they asked Him to intercede for them, 
and thereby have shown His love for them by jjraying for them? 
Surely, if the Apostles would not pray to Jesus, with whom they were 
well acquainted here on earth, does that not show that we ought to 
have misgivings about it when we pray to the Blessed Virgin and the 
saints, who are strangers to us? 

And to think to what mammoth proportions it has assumed, this 
practice of praying to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints! Why, it 
has even become so great that the world seems to be run by them and 



120 

that God has nothing to do with it now. "Thanks are returned to the 
Sacred Heart [a devotion that had its origin in a •'vision" of Margaret 
Mary, "in the year 1675] (5:428) for employment obtained. Our 
Blessed Lady, St. Joseph and St. Anthony were invoked. Masses for 
the souls in purgatory were also promised. A Rhode Island reader 
returns thanks to the Sacred Heart, St. Joseph and St. Anthony for a 
temporal favor obtained for a brother after a mouth of prayer. In 
thanksgiving the Litany of the Blessed Virgin will be recited once a 
day for thirty days for the souls in purgatory. A Harlem reader is 
exceedingly thankful for many blessings received of the Sacred Heart, 
through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, [not Mrs. Eddy,] St.. 
Joseph, St. Anthony, St. Elizabeth, St. Rita and the holy souls. The 
promoter's cross has been used in many instances witli much success. 
In thanksgiving for all benefits Masses and rosaries will be offered. 
A reader in Pennsylvania is grateful for a favor obtained through the 
intercession of St. Jude. A Cambridge reader returns thanks to the 
Sacred Heart, and the Blessed Virgin and St. Anthony for employ- 
ment which was sent in answer to prayer. The favor was obtained 
months ago. A reader in Providence wishes to return public thanks 
to the Blessed Virgin and St. Anthony for the recovery of her little 
nephew, Gerard, after a severe illness, during which he was given up 
by the doctors. A reader in South Dakota wishes to return public 
thanks to the Sacred Heart and the holy souls in purgatory for favors 
received through prayers. A member of the League in Kentucky 
wishes to have heartfelt gratitude published to the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus and His Blessed Mother for many favors. Also fervent thanks 
to St. Anthony of Padua, St. Joseph, St. Rita, St. Aloysius, St. Jude 
aud St. Expedit, particularly for the recovery of a brother from 
typhoid fever. Prayers were said daily and an alms promised to St. 
Anthony's bread. The boy recovered completely and the disease left 
no bad effects. The same boy was desirous of a better position, as he 
was exposed daily to the weather. Prayers were offered and he has 
received a very suitable position. A Sister was suffering with head 
trouble. The divine mercy of the Sacred Heart was imjjlored and she 
is getthig better every day. Another Sister is greatful for a better 
position and an increase in salary. A Chatham reader wishes to re- 
tain thanks for a temporal and spiritual favor obtained in December, 
1899, after novenas and prayers were offered in lionor of the Sacred 
Heart, Our Blessed Lady, the saints in general and St. Joseph, St. 



121 

Anne, St. Rita, St. Expedit and the holy souls in particular. In June 
another favor was granted by the Sacred Heart, in whose honor tlie 
petitioner had a lamp burning throughout the month. Thanks are 
oifered for these favors. A reader in Columbia is grateful to the Sa- 
cred Heart, the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, for the cure or an eye 
trouble which afflicted an infant two months old. The doctors said 
nothing could be done for so young a child. After prayers and novena 
the eye became quite well and has remained so for several months. 
A reader returns thanks for an important favor obtained through the 
intercession of Our Lady of Peri^etual help and St. Anthony of Padua. 
A donation to St. Anthony's bread was promised. A Brooklyn pro- 
moter wishes to return thanks for the grace of obedience granted to 
her, when she found it difficult to follow her confessor's instructions. 
She prayed to the Sacred Heart, Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, 
and courage was given her to follow exactly the directions of her supe- 
rio]'. A subscriber in Roxbury wishes to return thanks to fhe Sacred 
Heart, St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, for favors received during 
the past year. Prayers were said and publication promised. A reader 
in Patterson returns thanks to the Sacred heart of Jesus and Our Lady 
for the ijreservatiou of a little girl who was in great danger. One 
thousand Hail Marys were recited on the eve of All Saints, and a 
week afterward the danger was removed. Thanks are also offered to 
the Sacred Heart for a favor granted instantly through the interces- 
sion of St. Expedit. A reader in Ohio had been sick for more than 
four years "and was failing so rapidly that she felt death would ensue 
if relief were not afforded her soon. [It seems she would rather stay 
in this "'vale of tears" than go to heaven to sing "Holy, holy, holy."] 
Slie began to i)ray to the Sacred Heart, the Blessed Virgin and St. 
Anthony and proinisetl^if her jjrayers were heard to recite part of the 
Rosary every day for several months for the, souls in purgatory. 
Shortly after, her sleep improved, then as jjrayei'S were continued she 
gradually grew stronger. In six weeks' time the patient could do work 
slie had not been able to do in three years, and now, after six months, 
is almost entirely well. Everyone who knew of the sick person's con- 
dition is astoiiishetl. [I wonder why the ijriest who went to Germany 
the second time to take mud baths for rheumatism did not try this 
so that those who knew of his condition might be '"astonished?"] 

Thanks are ottered for a favor received from the Infant Jesus, 
(the Miraculous Infant of Prague,) and for all His blessings and 



122 

favors for the past year; also to our dear Blessed Mother and St. 
Joseph and the Guardian Angel. A reader in Ohio returns thanks to 
the Sacred Heart of Jesus for a great temporal and spiritual favor 
received. Prayers were also said to the Blessed Virgin and St! Joseph. 
The same person returns thanks to St. Anthony and St. Rita for a 
temporal favor that has been partially granted. The first request 
mentioned was in regard to a vocation. A reader in Brooklyn desires 
to return thanks to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, 
St. Joseph and St. Anthony, for the regaining of a position. She 
offered in thanksgiving the Rosary, and attendance at Mass every day 
for a month for the souls in purgatory. A reader in Ohio is thankful 
to the Holy Family and to the jDoor souls for the recovery of her cattle 
who were afflicted in the Summer with a distemper. There are twelve 
children in the family and the loss of milk alone was a heavy one. 
The cattle doctors could do nothing, so the mother and her family put 
their trust in prayer, invoking the Holy Family, [wdiich is Jesus, 
Mary and Joseph,] offering the Rosary in common every night and 
having a Mass said for the souls in purgatory. The pious practice 
was kept uj) until December. In the meantime every head of cattle 
recovered. [It seems it took them along time to get God "influenced" 
enough so that He waited until December to heal the cattle of "sum- 
mer complaint" — distemper.] A reader returns thanks to the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus for recovery from an attack of asthma. The promoter's 
cross was worn, publication promised and relief was soon obtained. 
Thanks are also returned for several temporal favors obtained through 
the intercession of St. Jude, St. Expedit, St. Joseph, Blessed Margaret 
Mary. An alms and publication were promised. A reader in Ver- 
mont experienced relief on three different occasions when suffering 
intense pain from neuralgia of the stomach, as soon as the League 
badge and Promoter's cross were placed on her. Thanks are sin- 
cerely offered for these favors. A Child of Mary returns thanks to 
the Blessed Virgin for a temporal favor." 53: Jan. V), 1901. 

Do you see God mentioned in these sujiposed answers to jirayers, 
of the members of the League of the Sacred Heart? In the complete 
reports of answers to prayers of the League of the Sacred Heart, God 
is not mentioned in those reported in the same paper, from which the 
foregoing was taken, on the following dates, so you may see that it has 
been spread over some time: Sept. 12, 1900; March 20, 1901; March 
5, 1902. As these are of about the same nature as the one I have 



123 

given I will not tire you with tliem. But from this it may be seen 
how idolatrous the Church has become now. "Oh," but it will be 
said, "it cannot be idolatry if the answers were really received to the 
prayers offered to these beings, none of whom is God." Is it certain, 
if these results were really received, that they were not coincidences? 
Take for instance the Cambridge reader who returned thanks to the 
"Sacred Heart and to the Blessed Virgin and St. Anthony for em- 
ployment which was sent in answer to prayer." Is it certain that the 
obtaining of employment was really due to the prayers offered for that 
purpose ? At the time that I went to Kansas City and advertised once 
for a position, I did not pray to any one to obtain employment for me, 
yet within a week's time I went to work in a place which was just the 
kind of a position that I could wish for in which to learn a mercantile 
business. No doubt if I had prayed at the time, and had gotten the 
position as quick as I did without praying for it, I would have been 
misled to believe that it was due to the prayers offered for that pur- 
pose. If I had prayed for a position and had obtained it then the 
same that I did without praying for that purpose, would that not have 
been a coincidence? One year, on the last Sunday night of August, 
thieves broke into my house and stole ray watch. I went to the jjolice 
station and reported my loss, giving the number of the works and the 
case of the watch. Well, when after a few weeks and the watch was 
not found I gave up all hopes of ever getting it again. But two days 
before Christmas — about four months after it had been stolen — a de- 
tective brought me my watch. [A good Christmas present, wasn't it?] 
Now, I never once prayed to anyone that I might recover my watch. 
If I had prayed and recovered it it would have been nothing but a 
coincidence, would it not? And if I had prayed to recover it and had 
not known the niimber of the works and the case so I could give it to 
the police department, do you suppose I would ever have gotten my 
watch again? Hardly. Take the healings mentioned in the answers 
to prayers, if they were really the result of prayers for that purpose, 
then, why do young priests die, and other priests suffer with rheuma- 
tism, so th^t they go to Europe to take mud baths for relief , and others 
suffer forty years with heart trouble, etc., etc. Why was not the life 
of a President spared when Catholics, the country over, prayed that it 
might be sjjared? Yea. even God's Vicar on earth off'ered prayers for 
that purpose. Yet the President had to die. Or why was not the life 
of the Archbishop spared, when his diocese offered prayers that he 



124 

might recover from his attack of pneumonia? If it is said that it was 
God's Will that they should have died when they did, then I say it is 
a blasphemy to say so, for it would make Grod an indifferent and arbi- 
trary Being, who would punish wliere not deserved and reward where 
not merited. I will try to make this clear to you in another chapter, 
that no one suffers, or dies, prematurely, because God wills it. 

I have direct evidence that novenas and prayers have failed to 
bring about the results ijrayed for. I tried a novena j'ears ago, when 
I was yet regarded as a "practical" Catholic, and prayed to the Blessed 
Virgin for restoration to health, yet it was not answered. Why was it 
not answered? Was it not God's will that I should have been restored 
to health then and have remained a Cotholic? If not, then. He must 
not regard the Catholic Church as the only Church that can save one's 
soul, or else He predestined — decreed — from eternity that I, who once 
was a "practical" Catholic, should be damned forever in a hell of un- 
speakable suffering, torment, and woe. Which will you have? a. f. y. 
As for me, I hope I have a nobler concei^tion of God's chai'acter than 
to believe the latter. Let us see further the magnitude of the idolatry 
practiced by the Church, in regard to the Blessed Virgin. I have 
proved to you by mathematics — and mathematics is from God — that 
there are offered to the Blessed Virgin such a number of petitions that 
it is utterly impossible for her to hear them, yet besides all this there 
are now forming, and have been for some time, what is called the 
"Association of the Perpetual Rosary," and it has the sanction and 
recommendation of Pope' Leo XIII.. who is supposed to be super- 
naturally preserved from error. "His Holiness Leo XIII. has through- 
out life given many proofs of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and 
iiothing pleases him better than to hear of the extension of the pious 
practice of reciting the Holy Rosary. * * * In October last year 
the Dominican Fathers of the Minerva Church, Rome, took steps to 
organize among the Catholics in Italy the custom of the perpetual 
recitation of the Rosary, which had been already established in 
France and Belgium. * * * j^^ ^y^g ^ source of much consolation 
to him [Leo XIII. ] to learu that the Association of the *Perpetual 
Rosary had been organized in Italy, and that day and night thous- 
ands, succeeding each other, were, by the recitation of the Rosary, 
praying for blessings on themselves and for the Church in the trials 
it had to endure." 53: Jinie 26, 190L 

Think of it! Thousands succeeding each other "day and night" 



125 

reciting the Rosary in France, Belgium and Italy! Actually making 
a God — or a Goddess — of a tinite being, the Blessed Virgin, xind it 
seems to be getting worse and worse as the years pass by. I remem- 
ber, when I was yet on the farm, we would, during Lent, pray the 
Litany of the Bitter Passion, which is a prayer principally to God, 
but now it is the Rosary principally, during Lent. "The Right Rev. 
Bishop — has announced the Lenten regulations, which are not difiPer- 
ent from those of recent years. The public religious exercises during 
Lent, consisting of Rosary, sermon and Benediction, to begin each 
evening at 7:30 o'clock." 53: Feb. 20, 1901. The Rosary is getting to 
be almost the common penance prescribed by confessors; at least it is 
in my case. 

Of ten confessions of which I kept a record of the penances 
imposed, one was the Stations of the Cross; one was iive Our Fathers 
and five Hail Marys; three were the Litany of the Saints, and five 
were the Rosary. 

If the Blessed Virgin were to have supernumeraries to take charge 
of all the petitions addressed to Her She would require, no doubt, no 
fewer than one hundred thousand stenographers, and they would have 
no time to sing "'Holy, holy, holy," or to make "goo-goo" eyes, either. 
They could not belong to any eight-hour-day nnion. Since I have 
proved, mathematically, that it is utterly impossible for the Blessed 
Virgin to hear the petitions addressed to Her, it is now to be seen 
whether the Sisters who go about carrying a Rosary on their belts, 
nearly large enough for a dog chain, will reject their intellect — mathe- 
matical proofs, like Luther did, or dethrone their intellect as the 
Christian Scientist — and submit their reason and understanding to 
the will of a man-made religion and still go about with Rosaries hang- 
ing to their belts. 

Here is some more of the man-made religion: "To the Irisk 
Messerujer also we are indebted for this pretty account of the origin 
of the beautiful May devotions: 'Some ninety years ago or more, a 
little child knelt down, one lovely evening in the month of May out 
in the open streets of Rome, before an image of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, and began to say aloud the Litany of Loreto. Next evening he 
was joined by another little boy and they sang together the Litany 
they had heard chanted in the Church. It was but a childish fancy 
as it seemed, the passing impulse of a moment. The evening follow- 
ing the the two children sang their Litany again, and a boy passing 



126 

stopped to listen and joined them. Several children assembled for 
the singing on the evening after, then their mothers came and knelt 
along with them, and quite a little choir sang the praises of Our Lady 
in the Roman street. At length a priest of the neighborhood invited 
them to come into his church, and he lit a few candles on the Blessed 
Virgin's altar, and they sang their Litany clustered round her statue 
in the calm religious twilight of that beautiful May evening. That 
was the beginning of the May Pevotions, the first inauguration — so 
simple and so homely — of what has come to be, under the sanction 
and approval of the Church, a world-wide expression of intense devo- 
tion to Our Lady." 53 : May 9, 1900. [This is apostolic, you know, ( ?) 
it was St. Peter's spirit re-incarnated in the little child. ] 

I will tell you how '"intense" the devotion has become, too. Be- 
sides divine services in Her honor every evening during the month of 
May, they had the closing exercises of the May Devotions in 1902 on 
Sunday evening, June the first. There were two features in connec- 
tion with it to which I wish to call special attention, the sermon and 
the procession in the church. The sermon was on the Blessed Virgin. 
It was an exhortation that we should strive to become children of Her. 
That we should take Her for a model, because She cared not for the 
things of this world, keeping Herself always undefiled, and desired only 
to be a bride of heaven. That we should daily recite the Rosary be- 
cause of the many spiritual indulgences we gained by doing so; to be 
enrolled with Her scapular, etc. It it true that She kept Herself always 
"undefiled," if by this is meant that She had no other children, through 
natural conception, besides Jesus'? Does this read like She never knew 
man, according to Bible language, and kept "Herself always undefiled," 
— if lawful marriage is defiling? "And he knew Her not until She 
brought fourth Her first-bom Son; and He called His name Jesus. 
Matt. 1:25. Also, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the 
brother of James, and Joseph, and Jude, and Simon ? are not also his 
sisters here with us?" Mark 6:3. How can the Church get around the 
literal meaning of these passages when she takes literally John 3 :5 
and John 6:54? Of course, in a foot note she tries to overcome the 
first difficulty "till She brought forth Her first-boni son," by saying, 
'that this expression of the evangelist was a manner of speaking usual 
among the Hebrews, to donate by the word until, only what is done, 
without any regard to the future," and cites as one example, (Gren. 
8:6-7,) "that Noah sent forth a raven, which went forth, and did not 



127 

return until the waters were dried up on the earth; that is, did not 
return any more." There is no sense in this rendering of the passage, 
but there is in the "Standard Edition" of the Bible, which says: "And 
he sent forth a raven, and it went to and fro, until the waters were 
dried up from ofp the earth." In this rendering — which, has some 
sense in it — it does too have "regard to the future," and not only to 
"what is done." The raven went "to and fro" until the future event 
of the waters being "dried ujj from oft' the earth." Is that not so? 
Well, then, Joseph knew Her after She brought forth Her first-born son, 
did he not, according to the passage of Gen. 8:6-7? a. f. y. The 
Church also quotes Isaiah 10:6-4 as follows: God says, "I am till you 
grow old," and then asks: "Who dare infer that God should then cease 
to be?" But on looking up this passage, in the book of Isaiah, I found 
that it read as follows: "Even to your old age I am the same, and to 
your gray hairs I will carry you; I have made you, and I will bear; I 
will carry and will save." It does not say anything at all about "I am 
till you grow old," does it? Oh, I am onto the "wisdom and learning 
of eighteen hundred years of the Church." The next quotation she 
makes she quotes 1 Mach., 5:54, without placing a comma after the 
word "slain," which is in the original, and which makes quite a dif- 
ference in its meaning. This is her way of quoting it: "And they 
went up to Mount Zion with joy and gladness, and offered holocausts, 
because not one of them was slain till they had returned in peace. 
That is, not one was slain before or after they had returned." By put- 
ting a comma between slain and till, as there is in. the original, then 
it means that they offered holocausts on Mount Zion, till they had re- 
turned in peace, and does not refer to "not one was slain before or 
after they had returned. By recasting the passage a little this fact 
becomes plain. "And they went up to Mount Zion, with joy and 
gladness, and offered holocavists till they had returned in peace, be- 
cause not one of them was slain." 

It seems that Bible grammar is not much better than mine, al- 
though it ought to be if God inspired it from "cover to cover." The 
Church says further: "God saith to His divine Son: Sit on my right 
hand till I make Thy enemies Thy foot stool. Shall He sit no longer 
after His enemies are subdued? Yea, and for all eternity." Well if 
we read I. Cor. 15:28, it ajjpears that He will be on an equality with 
the subdued. "And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then 
the Son also Himself shall be subject unto Him that ijut all things 



128 

imder Him, that God may be all in all."' Of course, this can be twisted 
into such ways so as to fit any meaning one wants to place on it. Mrs. 
Eddy can twist it so that it means that God is all, and there is no mat- 
ter. So there you are. When it says, "Thou shalt not go out from 
thence until you repay the last farthing,'' (Matt. 5:26.) and "He would 
not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt, (Matt. 
18:30.) does this mean that they were never released from prison, be- 
cause it only "mentions "what is done, wtthout any regard for the 
future? If, when it says: "He knew Her not until She brought forth 
Her first-born son," means that he never knew Her, then, if I say, "I 
went not to school til I arrived at the age of seven years," must also 
mean that I never went to school at all, but is that so, that I never 
went to school? Supposing, then, that She did not remain a perpetual 
virgin, what difference does that make to us? She cannot hear our 
petitions anyway, which I have already proven mathematically — and 
mathematics is from God — to be utterly impossible, and as regards 
the bearing it has on the nature of Jesus it effects it no more than a 
printing press effects the nature of the contents of the books printed 
on it. And as to virginity being more pleasing to God than marriage 
is a debatable question. It will be handled in another chapter. 

And now as to the procession in the church on the evening of the 
closing exercises of the May Devotions. The procession was composed 
mostly of little girls, who threw flowers over their shoulders as they 
marched, and of young ladies carrying lighted caudles, followed by 
four young ladies who carried a decorated platform on which was a 
statue, image, of the Blessed Virgin. As the marchers moved along 
they sang, "Sancta Maria, Ora, ora, ora pro nobis," which means, I sup- 
pose, "Holy Mary, Pray, pray, pray for us." When I beheld all this I 
was actuptlly astounded, and, during the progress of the procession, I 
exclaimed to myself a number of times, "My God, enable me one day, 
with the 'arms of the intellect,' to smash this species of idolatry!" 
Think of it, carrying about a statue of the Blessed Virgin and singing 
"Santa Maria, Ora pro nobis!" Well, I really felt so sorry for the 
blindness of the people in church, that they should believe in such 
idolatry, that I was nearly overcome with emotion and it would not 
have taken much more to have caused me to shed a tear over it. 

It was also Corpus Christi Sunday, and there had been a proces- 
sion over the college grounds, in the forenoon, with a wafer God — a 
piece of baked dough — and how the Catholics did drop on their knees 



129 

when it passed by them. I was amused at the sight, for I could not 
join in the procession on account of my physical condition, and there- 
fore could see the whole "spectacle," yet my amusement was mingled 
with pity for the poor, blind, unthinking— as I once was, also, — Catho- 
lics, who had not yet had the scales taken from their eyes that they 
might discern the error, idolatry and superstition of the whole thing, 
as I have discerned it. Do you not think I have occasion to thank 
God that the great loss to me, years ago, of that good Irish girl has 
been partly compensated for by this discovery of the great errors, 
idolatries, superstitions and blasphemies of the Catholic Church? a, 
f. y. And to show you how the Church blasphemes in her zeal to 
elevate the Blessed Virgin as a powerful, merciful and considerate 
being, as against the arbitrariness, indiflPerence and relentlessness of 
God, I will give you a quotation that you may see that I am not un- 
justly accusing the Church of — unwittingly, let us hope — blaspheming 
God. "In the Chronicles of the Friars Minor we read that Brother 
Leo, a familiar companion of St. Francis, had the following vision: 
The servant of God beheld himself placed on a sudden in the middle 
of a vast plain. There he beheld the judgment of Almighty God. 
Angels were flying to and fro, sounding their trumpets and gathering 
together countless multitudes of people. On this vast field he saw 
two high ladders, the one white, the other red, which reached from 
earth to the skies. At the top of the red ladder stood Jesus Christ 
with a countenance full of just indignation. On one of the steps, 
somewhat lower, stood the holy patriarch, St. Francis, who cried aloud 
to his brethren on the plain below: 'Come hither, brethren; come 
without fear; hasten to Christ, who is calling you.' Encouraged by 
these words of their Holy Father, the religious crowded round the 
foot of the ladder, and began to mount. Some reached the third step, 
and others the tenth ; some advanced to the middle, but all sooner or 
later lost their footing and fell wretched .y to the ground. St. Francis 
beholding so deplorable a fall, turned to our Lord and earnestly be- 
sought Him to grant salvation to His children. But the Redeemer 
yielded not to the prayers of the saint. [How unmoving Christ — God 
— is (?).] Then the holy patriarch went down to the bottom of the 
ladder, and said with great fervor, 'Do not despair, brethren of mine; 
run to the white ladder, and mount it with great courage. Fear not; 
by it you will enter into Paradise.' Whilst he was thus speaking, the 
Blessed Virgin appeared at the top of the white ladder, crowned with 
glory and beaming with gentleness. And the Friars, mounting the 



130 

ladder by favor of Mary, [Oh, it is a pity she is not our God-dess, 
instead of the unyielding Jesus Christ — God — "with a countenance 
full of just indignation!"] made their way, and all haijpily entered 
into the glories of Paradise. We may learn from this how true is the 
sentiment of St. Ignatius the Martyr: "That the mercy of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary saves those whom God's justice does not save.' " 7:535- 
536. Have I wrongly accused the Church of error, idolatry and blas- 
phemy, if one draws conclusions from that quotation? a. f. y. "One 
of the sweetest graces Our Lord gave us was at the very close of His 
life, when, in the person of St. John, He made Mary our Mother. 
What has she not done for us? She has loved us, taken joy in us, 
interest in our work, and from our birth She has had Her arm around 
us." 53: Sept. 12, 1900. Is that true that She "has had Her arm 
around us" from our birth, when to do so She would have to have at 
least over forty-six thousand arms, for each second of time? We 
must not be unmindful of the fact that this world is no child's toy, 
nor a one family, nor a one parish, nor a one diocese affair, but one of 
a magnitude that is almost inconceivable, and therefore utterly impos- 
sible for any finite being, however glorified, to have universal charge 
over it. It is simply a statement that is devoid of thought and reflec- 
tion. Is it not strange that if the Blessed Virgin was to be our 
Mother, and that St. John was at the cross "by a special providence — 
that our Saviour took care to have him there" (35:137) for the pur- 
pose of recommending Her to us, that He did not have St. Peter there 
instead, if it was to St. Peter alone that He delivered the keys to the 
kingdom of heaven, and it was on St. Peter — the Rock — that He builded 
His Church and made him its shepherd? Is this not a case of the 
sheep feeding the shepherd, if the "worship of the Virgin Mary * * * 
forms an essential i)art of the Catholic system," (35:119,) and St. 
Peter was placed over the other apostles by the words "Feed my 
sheep," (31:153,) yet he had to receive such an important doctrine as 
the worship of the Blessed Virgin, at second hand, from St. John, 
instead of from Jesus Himself? Would you entrust an important 
affair to an assistant secretary to deliver it to your chief secretary 
when you could deliver it to him personally yourself? And if St. 
John was at the cross by special providence could it not have been St. 
Peter just as well, to hear the words "Son, behold thy mother," if this 
meant as a mother for the whole world and for all time? St. Peter 
Damian says: "All the mercies of the Lord are in the hands of 



131 

Mary," (71:108,) and another writer says: "Through Her all gifts and 
graces descend on earth." 7:537. 

Since I have proved, by mathematics, that there are over forty- 
six thousand petitions addressed to the Blessed Virgin every second 
of time from one end of the year to the other, therefore an utter 
impossibility for Her to hear them, do you now wonder why it is that 
when you appealed to Her to intercede for you, that your dying hus- 
band's life might be spared, or the life of your young wife, with an 
infant child at her breast might be spared, you received no answer to 
your prayer, and he or she was mercilessly taken from you, if it is 
true that "all the mercies of the. Lord are in the hands of Mary," and 
that through Her all gifts and graces descend on earth?" Do you not 
believe it is about time to try to ascertain why our prayers are so 
fruitless in our dire needs? Jesus said: "If you ask the Father any- 
thing in my name He will give it you." Do you wonder, then, why 
God does not answer your prayers when you worship and pray to the 
Blessed Virgin and to the saints, instead of placing childlike confi- 
dence and trust in His promises made through His Son, Jesus Christ, 
and pray to Him direct? 

Is this true? "Do you remember the story of that religious man, 
a Jesuit I think, who was a famous preacher, and whose sermons con- 
verted men by scores? And it was revealed to him that not one of 
the conversions was owing to his talents or eloquence, but all to the 
prayers of an illiterate lay-brother who sat on the pulpit steps saying 
Hail Marys all the time for the success of the sermon." 11:126. Is 
that true? If so, why did not the Church keep up the practice of 
having an "illiterate lay-brother" sitting on the pulpit steps sayieg 
"Hail Marys" all the time for the success of the sermons" preached in 
those countries that were once Catholic, but are now almost overrun 
with Atheism ? Or does she think that she could not find enough 
"illiterate" persons for that purpose? If she thinks so, she ought to 
read what a daily paper of October 23, 1902, had to say, what the effect 
on the emigration from a certain country would be if the American 
Senate should "pass a bill excluding illiterate inmiigrants from the 
United States." 

And yet a priest lacked enough judgment so as to tell me the 
above yarn, — while I was bedridden, and after I had become a "regu- 
lar heretic," — as an inducement for me to say the Rosary occasionally 
during the day for the conversion of sinners, saying also that one 



132 

could not tell who might be converted, through my prayers to the 
Blessed Virgin, in Asia and Africa. The Blessed Virgin would have 
to be omnipresent if she should accomplish all the Church asks us to 
believe of her. 

Here is an illustration that would require such to be the case: 
"The writer had the pleasure the other evening of listening to a 
beautiful and practical discourse on the motives we have in honoring 
and praying to the Blessed Mother of God. One of the strongest 
reasons that should urge us to honor Mary, the preacher said, was 
that She is our Mother. [There being only about two hundred and 
fifty millions of us.] She was the last gift Our Saviour bequeathed 
us when dying on the cross. . She loves us as a mother loves her off- 
spring. What this mother-love means was prettily illustrated by a 
little scene he had witnessed a few days before from the window of his 
room. Across the street was the mother and child, a tot of about 
three years. He was reveling in the delightful childish pastime of 
making mud pies, the mother meanwhile sitting not far away reading 
a book. After awhile the baby met with a slight mishap. The stick 
with which he was decorating the pie snapped suddenly, hurting his 
fingers. He scrambled to his feet instantly and ran crying to his 
mother. She put her book aside, took the child in her arms, caressed 
him, spoke endearing words and kissed the hurt finger 'to make it 
well.' His tears were soon dried and he resumed his play. Not long 
afterward a big black dog came bounding along in the direction of the 
infant. Quicker than it takes to tell it, he was up and away to the 
safe refuge of his mother's arms. It was a tender and touching pic- 
ture of childish trust and mother love, and the speaker aptly applied 
the lesson it suggested to the theme in hand. Confiding and childlike 
should be our trust in our Blessed Mother. [Not in the God of Jesus, 
Peter and Paul, who, as IngersoU said, 'had nothing to do now but 
count hairs and watch sparrows fall.'] We should have recourse to 
Her in all our aflflictions, for no wound of our heart is too slight for 
Mary's healing kiss. When the black dog — the devil — comes too near 
us, then we should promptly fly to the arms of our dear Mother, 
which shall enfold us safely until all danger is past. If we only call 
upon Her sincerely and confidently in all our griefs and temptations 
she will surely show herself a Mother, a comforter and a refuge." 
53: May 14, 1902. 

Now, all this is a fine flow of verbiage, and as St. Gregory wrote 



133 

St. Jerome: "Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage; 
the less thej' understand the more they admire. Our fathers and doc- 
tors have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances 
and necessity forced them to." (67:183, Vol. 2). So in this case, I 
suppose, the unthinking listeners heard much that they had to "ad- 
mire." But let us take another look, holding in mind that if only one 
hundred million Catholics would each, out of twenty-four hours, only 
be forty seconds under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, She 
would have to have in Her arms every second of time from one end of 
the year to the other, over forty-six thousand, that is, at one and the 
same time — simultaneously — She would have to have over forty-six 
thousand in Her arms, if they "should have recourse to Her in all 
their afflictions," and they would "promptly fly to the arms of our 
dear Mother." Do you now see the impossibility of this whole fabric, 
of having recourse to any being outside of God Almighty? 

As this book is written for the benefit of the unbeliever, as well 
as for the Catholic and non-Catholic believer, the question would 
probably be liked to be asked, How can God Almighty hear at one and 
the same time — simultaneously — one billion and five hundred million 
— the supposed population now of the earth — petitions should they 
aU pray to Him at one and the same time. Now, this was a diffcult 
question for a time, which I had to face and had to answer rationally, 
if I wished to convert the atheistic scientists and the infidel i)hiloso- 
phers, to the belief in the existence of an intelligent, powerful and 
living being, whom we, believers, call God. While I was reading 
their literature and learned to know what, apparently difficult, ques- 
tions they propounded, I would, when I came across such questions, 
exclaim, "O God, reveal to me the truth," so that I might give a 
reasonable answer, supported by science, philosophy and revelation. 

Well, the following thought came to me finally, and what was its 
source I will let you a. f. y. It was to make an illustration with a 
fish-globe filled with pure water and fish swimming in it. The globe 
was to represent all space; the water Spirit, God, and the fish "all 
things;" that is, the earth with all its living beings on it, the Sun, 
Moon and the Stars or Planets. Of course, this destroys the authro- 
pomorphic-man-form conceijtion of God, yet this view of Him is sup- 
ported by science, philosophy, and revelation, which I will later call 
on to corroborate it. Here is one fundamental of Christian Science 
which is true, that God — the Divine principle — fills all space, just as 



134 

the water in the globe fills all space in it, although I do not circum- 
scribe Spirit, as the globe circumscribes the water. Now, as Spirit 
fills all space, as the water does the globe. He is omnipresent to us no 
matter where we are, just as the water is omnipresent to the fish, no 
matter whether they are in the bottom, the center, or the top of the 
globe, nor does it matter whether there is but one fish or a million or 
more, they are all in the same water;. so likewise are we all, be the 
number of us indefinite, in the omnipresence of the Spirit, God. And 
as the water in the globe, in which all the fish are, is but one water, so 
likewise is the Spirit, God, in which all things are one Spirit, God. 
Is this plain to you now, how it is possible for God to hear at one and 
the same time — simultaneously — the prayers of one billion and five 
hundred million, yea, of one billion and five hundred million times 
one billion and five hundred million persons? As I already stated, 
such a view of God destroys the anthropomorphic conception of Hira, 
but by doing so, does this make Him any less an intelligent, powerful, 
and living Being? Is a man, without arms and limbs that have been 
shot to pieces in war and, therefore, had to be amputated, any less a 
man in intelligence, mind-power, and life, than he was prior to those 
amputations? Is electricity less powerful because its subtle fluid can- 
not be perceived by the senses of man, and can only be known by its 
material manifestations, than is a horse or a man with definitely de- 
fined outlines of form? Does it require anthropomorphic agents to 
carry the substance of the soil to the farthest extended limb of a mam- 
moth tree? Yet it is carried there and with mathematical precision it 
is carried to the fullest outline of a defined mold or pattern, if not 
interfered with by external forces. By external forces I mean an 
obstruction that is in the way of the internal forces' natural develop- 
ment, as, for instance, a clod tolled against, or dirt plowed on, the 
growing corn, if not removed, may interfere with its internal force of 
development or growth, and make the stalk grow crooked or probably 
kill it altogether, while if there where not this external force of the 
clod or the dirt, the corn stalk would grow straight and develop to its 
farthest outline of its mold or pattern. And this mold or pattern is 
according to a law that manifests intelligence and design and power. 
And does any sane, rational and intelligent person really believe that 
a law was ever enacted without a law-maker or law-giver? And if 
made and enacted by a Being that is beyond the ken of science, — 
because it cannot be dissected with the scalpel, or be weighed on the 



135 

scales, or be discerned by the microscope or the telescope, or be chem- 
ically analyzed in the labratory, or be detected by the spectroscope — 
is that the reason one must deny or question the existence of a Being 
who has mind, life, power, and intelligence to enact a law, and who is 
omnipresent to every person on this earth, and can, therefore, hear, 
at ene and the same time — simultaneously — their prayers? It is 
because God is not anthropomorphic, and is beyond the ken of science, 
and is therefore Spirit that is omnipresent to all, and can only be 
known by its material manifestations that makes us stand in awe and 
reverence when we contemplate it. 

Let us now see what evolution of science has to say of this omni- 
present Spirit, which it likes to term as "force," "energy," "first 
cause," etc. This is what Herbert Spencer says of it: "Amid the 
B ysteries which become more mysterious the more they are thought 
about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever in 
presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things pro- 
ceed." 72:73. The following is what Newton says of God: "The 
Supreme God exists necessarily, and by tlie same necessity He exists 
always and everywhere. Whence, also He is all similar, [Like the 
water in every part of the fish-globe] all eye, all ear, all brain, all 
arm, [Like the subtle electric fluid that propels the trolley car] all 
power to perceive, to understand, and to act in a manner not at all 
human, [as, for instance, the mode of conveying, from the soil, the 
substance that composes the building material of which the farthest 
extended and highest limb of a mammoth tree is formed] not at all 
corporeal; in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has 
no idea of colors, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all 
wise God perceives and understands all things. He is latterly void of 
all body and bodily figure, [Like the water in the fish-globe] and can 
therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor ought to be 
worshipped imder the representation of any corporeal thing. We 
have ideas of His attributes, but what the real substance of anything 
is we know not." Third book, Principia of Newton, in 73:120, Vol. 2, 

Let us see what more modeni-day Christian writers have to say, 
"God is infinite — without bounds or measure, reaching everywhere, 
through all things, encompassing all existence, filling all that is. 
74:55. "God is everywhere, and everywhere whole and entire, (and) 
wheresoever any extended substance is placed it is in the same place 
with the whole of God. * * * The Divine substance is such that 



136 

it would be present to any possible world supposing that world to 
start into existence. This presence would not be anything new in 
God, or He would not be immutable. Therefore we must say that the 
Divine substance has an existence eminently equivalent to any pos- 
sible extension whatever of corporeal worlds, i. e., that God is really 
immense. It is gratifying to see this great truth accurately stated by 
Newton in Scholin Generale, added to the third book of his Principia, 
where he says: 'God is present everywhere, not only by His power, 
but also by His substance; for power cannot exist without substance.' " 
26:248, 253. Does not this agree with my illustration of water and the 
fish, that no power can "subsist without substance," when it is the sub- 
stance of water filling all the globe — all space — that gives the power 
that holds the fish wherever they wish to go? St. Thomas said: "God 
is in all things so as to surround them on all sides with His Being;" 
[Just as the water surrounds the fish "on all sides"] and "Nothing 
is distant from God, as though He had it not in Himself." 26:255. 
"The blessed One [God] has no corporeal figure, no outline of body, 
to which we could liken anything; He being a pure spirit, not subject 
to measure of space and time like ourselves." 75:32. The foregoing 
is the Jewish conception of God. "We call God a Spirit because He 
has understanding and free will, but no body." 30:82. "God is sim- 
ple, without body or distinction of parts. * * * His is every- 
where, yet with our place * * * He is immutable; His eternity 
defends Him from time. His immensity from change of place." 11 :312. 
Is there anything in these many quotations that is not in strict agree- 
ment with my illustration of the fish-globe, water, and the fish it, rep- 
resenting all space. Spirit, God, and all things?" A. f. y. 

Let us now see what revelation has to say, for many will not accept 
anything as a spiritual truth unless it has a so-called "Scriptural war- 
rant." "He is higher than heaven, * * * He is deeper than hell. 
* * * The measure of Him is longer than the earth, and broader 
than the sea." Job, 11:8-9. "Do not I fill heaven and the earth? 
saith the Lord." Jer. 23:24. "For in Him we live, and move, and 
be." Acts, 17:28. Is that not like the fish in the water in the fish- 
globe? "For of Him, and by Him, and in Him are all things." Rom. 
11:36. Yes, "all things," no matter if it be planets millions of miles 
from the earth, they are all in Spirit — God — just as the fish are in the 
water in the fish-globe of my illustration. It may be seen, then, 
that my illustration, of how it is possible for God — Spirit — to hear 



137 

simultaneously an unlimited number of prayers satisfactorily answers 
that question, and that the illustration is amply supported by science, 
philosophy, and revelation. This, of course, as I stated already, 
destroys the anthropomorphic conception of God, but does this detract 
from His character and attributes? If God were anthropomorphic in 
form whom would He resemble; the white man? Would not a Negro 
have just as much right to claim that God resembles him, that he is 
created after the image and likeness of God, as much as the white 
man, who should claim that God is white because he is white? If 
Adam's color is the color of God, because he was created in the image 
and likeness of God, and the "image and likeness" means bodily 
outline and color, then God would be of the color of red earth, for 
Josephus says: "Adam in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is 
red, because he was formed out of red earth compounded together." 
76:25. Again: if the destruction of the anthropomorphic conception 
destroys God as an object of worship, can you, then, better worshii) 
God when He is represented by a dove? In a booklet that I have, 
entitled "Devotion to God the Holy Ghost," is the picture of a dove. 
Would you be inspired to greater worship and veneration of God by 
holding a conceijtion of Him in the form of a dove, or a wafer, than 
you would if you held Him in a representation of formless Spirit 
which manifests mind, power and intelligence? No doubt the "Reor- 
ganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" will take excep- 
tions to the views of God as elaborated here, for one of its elders has 
proved in a parajDhlet that God is anthropomorphic in form and is not 
omnipresent, giving Scripture references that He has a mouth, a hand, 
a face, feet, back parts, etc., which were seen by Moses and his coun- 
selors. But an authority which also contradicts itself is not much of 
an authority, and in that case we must use reason, intellect and 
common sense in arriving at a fact or a truth. The elder quotes Gen. 
11:5-7 and then asks, "Now, if it be true that God is everywhere, pray 
tell me why did He have to come down to see the city? He would be 
there already." 77:8. He then quotes Gen. 32:30 and Ex. 33:11, to 
prove that God's face has been seen. Yet in another place, this same 
infallible Word of God says: "No man hath seen God at any time," 
(John, 1:18,) and also, "Whom no man hath seen, nor can see." I. 
Tim., ():1G. Did God inspire these contradictions? Well, I intend to 
devote a little time, in another chapter, to pruning this so-called "In- 
fallible Word of God" of some of its dross and rubbish and blasphemy. 



138 

We will now again consider some phases of the doctrines concern- 
ing the Blessed Virgin. The. Church says: "The Woman shall crush 
thy [serpent's] head. All the promises of God are fulfilled." 41:158. 
Is this true, if the devil still goes about "like a roaring lion,' and 
the Blessed Virgin has come and gone? Some more "verbiage," 
eh? The Church also prays to saints as though they were Our Father. 
"O Loving Father St. Benedict, guide and patriarch of Monks! Hope 
and comfort of all. * * * O holy Father, * * * O most kind 
Father. * * * O Sweet Master."' 43:696. She might just as well 
recite the "Man With the Hoe;" it would do as much for spiritual 
worth as to recite prayers that are never heard by those to whom they 
are addressed. She has truly set up her dumb images of the Blessed 
Virgin and the saints to be worshipped and prayed to, in place of the 
pagan idols and gods which she displaced. The Church says: "In 
invoking Our Lady's patronage, we are acheated by a triple sense of 
the majesty of God, our own unworthiness, and of Mary's incompara- 
ble influence with Her Heavenly Father." 31:224. 

Does not this appear to be a parallel case with a politician, who 
has been elected to an office with considerable patronage at his dis- 
posal, and the ones who have the greater "incomparable influence" 
back of them will get the best places regardless of whether they are 
capable or not? Will God do less, or more than what is just, simply 
because one has or has not "incomparable influence" back of one? 
Do you believe that God is capricious, arbitrary, and conceited so that 
He can be swerved from punishing where deserved, or rewarding 
where merited because one has "incomparable influence"'back of one? 
When St. Paul said: "For what things a man shall sow, those also 
shall he reap," (Gal. 6:08.) will "incomparable influence" enable a 
man to reap of the spirit, if he has sown in the flesh? a. f. y. Another 
thing, how will the Blessed Virgin be able to use Her "incomparable 
influence" for this or that person, when, as I have already proved, 
mathematically, that if only one hundred million, out of the two hun- 
dred and fifty millions of Catholics in the world, each one were to pray 
only forty seconds a day the Blessed Virgin would have to hear, sim- 
ultaneously, over forty-six thousand petitions? The Church says that 
we are to "consider God" as a "most loving Father." and our "most 
generous benefactor." 78:21. But is He a "most loving Father," and 
a "most generous benefactor," if He will only do justice according to 
the pressure of "incomparable influence" that has been brought to 



139 

bear in favor of one ? This teaching of the intercession of the Blessed 
Virgin and the saints, is one that degrades, slanders and blasphemes 
God, in that it gives him a character that is unrelenting, arbitrary, 
indifferent, whimsical, partial, without principle, and corrupt, if He 
can be swerved from punishing where deserved, or from rewarding 
where merited, simply by the possession or lack of "incomparable 
influence"' one has. If it is true "That evil Spirits occasionally mani- 
fest themselves, [to Spiritualists,] pretending to be the Spirits of 
departed friends or other persons, was already well known in the 
Middle Ages," and "It is an old trick of evil Spirits to pretend to be 
the Lord, or some god, or saint, etc.," (12:225-253,) and that they are 
"the cause of idolatry," (41:40,) then they have admirably succeeded 
in "bumfoozling" the Catholic Church, by foisting on her the idolatry 
of the intercession and worship of the Blessed Virgin and the saints 
through their "apparitions" to St. Dominic in the Middle Ages and to 
other saints, have they not? 

St. Paul said: "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a 
gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be 
anathema," (Gal. 1:8,) yet the Church, instead of preaching only "If 
you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it you," (16:23,) 
and "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Who comforteth us in 
all our tribulations," (2 Cor. 1:3, 4,) she preaches the doctrine of be- 
seeching "God to grant our petitions for the sake of his saints," 
(50:81) not in the name of, or for Christ's sake; of "flying to the arms 
of Mary," to comfort us in "all our afflictions and tribulations," and 
not as St. Paiil bade us to do. The Blessed Virgin is made quite a 
competitor for the prerogatives honors, and glories of God. She is 
"most merciful;" the "Mirror of Justice;" the "Seat of wisdom;" the 
"health of the sick;" the "comfortress of the afflicted;" Virgin most 
powerful;" "vessel of honor;" the "Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, 
our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To Thee do we cry, poor ban- 
ished children of Eve. To Thee do we send up our sighs, mourning 
and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advo- 
cate, Thine eyes [46,000, or more, pairs] of mercy towards us. And 
after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of Thy womb, 
Jesus. [Don't care to be shown God; He can take a back room, like 
old folks in a home of young "up to date" people, and He can amuse 
Himself, as Ingersoll said, by "counting hairs, and watching sparrows 



140 

fall."] O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. * * * Re- 
member, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that 
any one who fled to Thy protection, implored Thy help, and sought 
Thy intercession, was left unaided. [Except the priest who went to 
Germany twice to take mud baths for rheumatism.] Inspired with 
this confidence, I fly unto Thee. [With over 46,000 others at the 
same time.] O Virgin of Virgins, [whom Joseph knew after she 
brought forth her first-born Son, and who had other sons and daugh- 
ters; Mark 6:3] my mother. To Thee I come; before Thee I stand, 
sinful and sorrowful. [Because you are at the top of the "white lad- 
der."] O Mother of the Word Incarnate! despise not my petitions, 
but in Thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen." This is a sample of 
the Church that is Apostolic, and which teaches today the same truths 
that were taught by the Apostles." 579:17. What Apostles? I 
would like to know, for the Apostles of Jesus did not teach that we 
should go to any one in tribulation, in sorrow, and in sin, but to God — 
that is, there is no record of it in their writings to that effect. I am 

like the , I have to be "shown." But, then, this is a free country, 

and one can believe what one wants to — that is, one can pretend that 
one believes, if one only keeps one's mouth shut, as I did since 1899. 
The Church says: "It is the correct thing to pray to St. Joseph for 
money. [I suppose this is the reason that Catholics have so much 
money that they do not have to have fairs, card parties, "highly inde- 
cent, obscene, impure" round dances; sell liquor at a picnic in the 
'80s in a Prohibition Statg; accept liquor dealers' advertisements in 
their College Fair Daily, etc:, if they need a little money to pay on 
the indebtedness of their churches.] * * * To St. Roche for the 
restoration of health, and when a jjlague is threatened. [This is, no 
doubt, what the priest did who went to Germany to take mud baths 
for his rheumatism, until he got tired waiting until his turn came to 
be waited on, for the petitions must, without doubt, come to St. Roche 
at the rate of at least four thousand every second of time.] To St. 
Blase for a cure of all diseases of the throat. [This is the reason no 
Catholic ever dies from tonsilitis, diphtheria, etc.] * * * To St. 
Catherine for a husband." 68:191, 192. [Ah! This explains why 
there are no Catholic Old Maids, and why all Catholic women are either 
married or have entered a convent to be God's "own loved spouse."] 
78:56. Of course, the men do not need to pray to a saint for a 
wife, for if it is true what soured old dyspeptics say, in advertisements 



141 

and otherwise, how the women "chase" the men, then they must be 
running to get away from the women like a scared rabbit does that is 
"chased" by hounds. This, I suppose, is the reason why "our kind 
Mother, the Church," has no special saint for the men to pray to when 
wanting a wife. This is probably the reason why I missed out, in 
1891, on that eighteen-year-old Irish girl. And have I not, therefore, 
reasons for having a little feeling of animosity towards a Church 
which is so derelict in her duties towards men as not to provide a spe- 
cial saint for them to pray to when wanting a wife? With the doc- 
trine of the invocation and worship of the Blessed Virgin and the 
Saints proved, with the "arms of the intellect," as being only a species 
of error, idolatry, and superstition, have I not, then, brought the 
Catholic Church and the "separated brethren" another step nearer to- 
gether? I suppose another of the barriers between a union of the 
Catholic, and the non-Catholic Churches is the doctrine of Auricular 
Confession — that is, confessing to a priest in the Confessional. Con- 
fession, then, will be the theme which we will next consider. 



CHAPTER V. 



CONFESSION. 

It was on account of the frequency with which the Rosary and 
the Litany of the Saints were prescribed as a penance after Confess- 
ing, and after the thought had come to me, as stated in the i^revious 
chapter, that it was utterly impossible for the Blessed Virgin and the 
saints to hear the i^rayers addressed to them, that made me question 
the truth of the doctrine of Confession as taught by the Catholic 
Church. I began to think and asked myself the question. If the 
Church is in error as regards the invocation and worship of the Bles- 
sed Virgin, why may she not be in that of Confession, because a part 
of Confession consisted of the penances prescribed, and if the penan- 
ces that were prescribed were invalid, from the fact that the ones to 
whom they were addressed could not possibly hear them then, why 
may not the whole Confession be thereby invalidated? This is a reas- 
onable question to ask, is it not? Well, after this doubt arose in my 
mind, about the validity of Confession, as the Church teaches it, I 
began to look for the arguments of the Church in support of her teach- 
ings in regard to it. After reading many of her arguments on 
Confession I was finally convinced that it was another error of the 
Church, in which she seems to abound in plentifully, and that it is a 
relic of the "pagans of Greece and Rome," and elsewhere, who prac- 
ticed it, according to the author of ''The Prodigal Son," (7:345,) and 
also as "Plutarch informs us that the pagan mysteries often began 
with discreet confessions whispered into priestly ears." 66:15. We 
will now see what the Church teaches on the subject of Confession, or 
Penance. 

"What is the Sacrament of Penance? It is a sacrament in which 
the priest, as God's representative, forgives sins, when the sinner is 
heartily sorry for them, sincerely confesses them, and is willing to do 
penance [as for instance, say the Rosary, or the Liitany of the Saints] 
for them. Does the priest really forgive sins, or does he only declare 
them forgiven? The priest really and truly forgives sins through the 
power given him by Christ. When did Christ give the power of for- 
giving sins? When after His resurrection He breathed upon the 



143 

apostles and said to them: 'Receive ye the Holy Grhost. Whose sins 
you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained' (John xx:22-23)." 29:150-151. Did Jesus 
commission His apostles to do anything else besides the forgiving or 
retaining of sins? No doubt you will say yes; but what else did He 
commission them to do? He commissioned them to "do this for a 
commemoration of Me," which the Church teaches means celebrating 
Mass, and by using Christ's words, "This is my body; this is my 
blood," bread and wine are supposed to be changed into the Body and 
Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ — Grod. Is this all He com- 
missioned them to do? No doubt it will be said, it is not, for he sent 
them to preach. "Where is the Scrij^tural wan-ant that they were sent 
to preach? "Oh," you will probably say, as did the author of the 
"Church of Christ," (79:23,) "it is in Luke 9:1-2." Well, what does 
that say? "Then calling together the twelve apostles, he gave them 
power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And He 
sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick." Do 
the priests heal the sick, in connection with preaching the kingdom 
of Grod? If not, why not? Or is it not true that priests have "con- 
ferred upon them * * * all the heavenly powers," (66:38,) which 
the Church claims, and because of having conferred on them "all the 
heavenly powers" the priests can forgive sins any more than you or I 
can, if any one who has wronged us comes to us and acknowledges 
the wrong and asks forgiveness from you or from me? And if we for- 
give those who come to us, asking forgiveness for a wrong done us, 
can God, then, do less than we, and refuse to forgive us when we ask 
Him to, unless we first go to a priest, tell him our sins, and who then 
imposes a Rosary or the Litany of the saints as a penance? 

If the priests have "conferred on them all the heavenly powers" 
— any more than they are conferred on you or me — then why do they 
not go to the bedside of the helpless and suffering sick and speak 
Christ's words, "Arise and walk," to them, in obedience to the divine 
command to "preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick?" 
"Oh," but it will be said, that "healing the sick does not mean the 
physical body, but the soul." Well and good, let us have it that way, 
then. Will you say that soul is healed which, the older it gets, the 
more does it become a slave of intemperance, swearing, gossiping, 
"highly indecent, obscene, impure" round dancing, wrangling, quar- 
reling, fighting, etc.? I know of many cases where sober young 



144 

Catholic men began drinking years ago so that they have since become 
slaves of intemperance, and who are still practicing their religion, by 
going to the Church and the Sacraments regularly. Even women are 
beginning to make freer use of profane language the older they get 
When they were growing up children they would be shocked if any 
one used the words "darn it" in their presence, but who now freely 
use it themselves, and who knows but that perhaps in time, as many 
have done, they will say "damn it," or something worse. Yet these 
girls and women go to Confession regularly. Will you say that 
the older persons become, and the more of a hardened sinner they 
become that they are "healed" in soul, if the healing commanded by 
Christ meant the healing of the soul? "In the sacrament of con- 
fession, the priest is a physician and judge. He is a physician, and 
consequently he must know the nature of the malady that afflicts the 
soul before he can cure it." 7:362. 

Why, then, does not the priest cure the malady of drunkenness 
since he has been made aware of the "nature of the malady" in the 
confessional? Or is drunkenness no "malady that afflicts the soul?" 
and not alone the soul, but the body as well? What can create more 
of a hell on earth than drunkenness? It is the cause of m6re poverty, 
misery, suffering, heart-breaks, insanity Bnd crime than any other 
known sin. St. Paul places drunkards in the same category with 
"fornicators," adulterers, liars, thieves, covetous," (I, Cor. 6:9-10,) 
etc., and that such shall not possess the kingdom of God. Why, then, 
does not the priest heal the malady of drunkenness? Why do the 
priests not heal the people of the "malady" of swearing; of using 
obscene language; of a bad temper and make them amiable, gentle 
and kind; or of any of those, that are called, "besetting" sins, if auricu- 
lar confession is necessary so that the priest may "know the nature of 
the malady that afflicts the soul before he can cure it?" 

Another argument or teaching of the Church is that "unless we 
make known our sins to the Priest, he cannot judge whether to for- 
give or to retain them." 29:151. Can a priest know by the way one 
confesses one's sins whether one intends or not to give up this or 
that sin? If he cannot, then how is he going to judge whether to for- 
give or to retain them ? Does not the priest know whether or not one 
danced the "highly indecent" round dance, or was drunk before a pre- 
vious confession, and if not, is it not as much of a duty for him to 
ascertain whether such was the case or not, as he seems to make it his 



145 

duty to know whether or not one, before a previous confession, had 
read a book forbidden by the Church, or whether one went to a 
Protestant Church, or whether one sent one's children to a non-Cath- 
olic school, should one confess to such faults and not mention whether 
or not one was guilty of those faults before a previous confession. Yet 
absolution may be had, without any trouble, in the former case, while 
in the latter, absolution is refused if one should confess to these faults 
and would not promise to correct those faults. Now, why this dis- 
crimination? The drunkard, and the dancer of the "highly indecent" 
round dances have no sincere desire to give them up, yet such can get 
absolution, but those who refuse to give up reading books forbidden ' 
by the Church; or to go to a Protestant Church, or refuse to send 
their children to a Caiholic school, are refuse absolution. Now, why 
is this? It will not do to say that to be guilty of these latter faults is 
a scandal to the Church, for what can be a greater scandal than to 
"see a drunkard staggering along" and have some "scoffing infidel 
* * * tell you, sneeringly, 'Oh! it is only a drunken Catholic?' " 
7:118. No, it is not that the priest "must know the nature of the 
malady that afflicts the soul before he can cure it, ' or that "unless we 
make known our sins to the Priest he cannot judge whether to forgive 
or to retain them," but it is to see whether or not one does anything 
that might open one's eyes, make one broader minded, do some think- 
ing and thereby lose one's faith in the Catholic Church, yet not in. 
God. It is the liberty of thinking that the Church deplores, for she 
seems to apprehend that if people do a little thinking for themselves, 
she would lose her hold on them. Therefore, she uses the whip of 
absolution in order to keep the faithful in, as Haeckel calls it, "eccle- 
siastical leading-strings." 80:111, Vol. 1. 

"Rome, Dec. 23. — The Pope this morning received the Cardinals, 
who offered him their Christmas greetings. The Pontiff made a long 
address, in which he condemned the excessive liberty of thought in- 
dulged in at the present time." 53: Jan.l, 1902. With Mr. Ingersoll 
I say, "If Grod did not intend I should think, why did he give me a 
'thinker?' " 42:383. Yes; and "think" I will, whether the Pope likes 
it or not, for no "machine has yet been devised to shut out thought," 
(81:772, Val. 2) as Emerson said. In a letter commending the Pas- 
toral on Liberal Catholicism the Pope said in part: "Too well known 
is the actual and threatening mischief of that body of fallacious opin- 
ions which is commonly designated as Liberal Catholicism. * * * 



146 

You have done most wisely in issuing a solemn warning against the 
subtle and insidious spread of Rationalism, than which no jjoison is 
more fatal to Divine faith. In like manner, nothing is more in 
accordance with right doctrine than what you have laid down as to 
the obedience due to Episcopal authority; for subjection and obedi- 
ence due to that authority are in no sense optional, but plainly a duty 
and a main foundation on which the Church of Grod is built. We 
therefore must heartily give you our praise and approbation for these 
things. * * * Lastly, Catholics should always pay a holy submis- 
sion and obedience to the Roman See ; and if its oiDjJonents seek either 

.to disparage its authority or to sow in men's minds suspicion and dis- 
trust of its guidance let them be boldly refuted in these words of Ven- 
erable Bede, a Doctor of the Church: * * * -that whosoever 
separatejthemselves from the unity of the faith, or from His fellow- 
ship, can neither be released from the chains of their sins [Like the 
Catholic drunkard has been released — by death] nor enter the gate of 
the heavenly kingdom.' * * * Griven in Rome, at St. Peter's on 
the 11th day of February, in the year 1901, * * * Leo XIII., 
Pope." 53: Vol. XV, No. 24. Yes, "subjection and obedience" is a 
"main foundation on which the Church" of Rome is built, and noth- 
ino- is more fatal to its faith than Rationalism — Reason and Intellect — 
God-given faculties, which I propose to use and not stultify and 
throw "under the feet of faith." 5:409. Do you suppose that if the 
Pope were in j)ossession of temj^oral i^ower in Rome that he would 
only write a letter against the "Anti-Catholic Propaganda" in Rome? 
Do you not suppose that he would invoke the aid of the civil arm, if 
he were at the head of it, just as the priest used, in one sense of the 
word, force against me, when he forbade my i^eople to let a Christian 
Science healer into the house to see me when I was bed-ridden? "So 

' outrageous has become the scheming of the anti-Catholic proselytiz- 
ers in Italy, and even in Rome, that Pope Leo XIII. has felt it his 
duty to write a letter addressed to the Cardinal-Vicar on the subject. 
* * * The Holy Father goes directly to the root of the difficulty. 
He exposes the schemes of the Protestant propogandists. They care 
not so much to make converts to their own contradictory sects as to 
destroy the faith of Catholics. By means of alleged philanthropical 
work they entice children into their institutions, and there they set to 
work to pervert the minds of these victims, [who believe the Blessed 
Virgin can hear at one and the same time over 46,000 prayers] and 



147 

thus make them members of Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian or other 
sects that happen to be supporting the faith-destroying place." 53: 
Sep. 19, 1900. Where the Church has lost temporal power and cannot, 
therefore, summarily banish from her midst non-Catholic missionaries 
who might "pervert the minds" of the faithful, she uses the whip of 
absolution to keep the faithful from straying occassionally into a 
Protestant Church, or from sending their children to non-Catholic 
schools, where they mi^ht hear and learn something about the history 
of the Church that would open their eyes and start them to do a little 
thinking and reasoning of their own, and which might cause them to 
lose their Catholic faith. If this is not true, then why is it not the 
correct thing "To go to a Protestant Church and then neglect to men- 
tion the fact in confession, on the plea that one only went 'to look on,' 
'to pass away the time,' 'to listen to the music,' 'to see what it was all 
like, 'because a friend desired it,' etc., and not to take part in the ser- 
vice?" 63:176. Why, then, in examining one's conscience, prepara- 
tory to going to confession, one must examine one's self in part as fol- 
lows: "Have you exposed your faith to danger by going to Protest- 
ant Churches, or reading Protestant books?" (206:432) if my asser- 
tions are not true? Why, then, the following: "The congregation at 
St. , at the Masses this morning, were startled at an announce- 
ment made by the Rev. , the pastor, as coming from the bishop, 

that parents sending their children to the public schools instead of 
the parochial schools, would be refused absolution. He further stated 
that Catholics who were married by Protestant ministers would be 
excommunicated." 57: 1901. Now, I know this to be a fact, that 
parents have been refused absolution for sending their children — and 
for good reasons — to the public schools, so that they made trips to 
other cities for the reception of absolution and the Sacrament. If the 
Church says that the Catholic school is the only place to inculcate 
morals and virtue and faith into the child, then why did they not do 
this in old Catholic countries where the machinery of education was 
in her hands for centuries, which countries are now fast becoming 
overrun with atheism and infidelity, and, if reports are true, are ban- 
ishing her institutions from within their borders? 

It may be seen, then, the arguments of the Church that confession 
is necessary so that the priest may "know the nature of the malady 
that afflicts the soul before he can cure it," and "unless we make 
known our sins to the priest, he cannot judge whether to forgive or to 



148 

retain them," is one which misleads as to the true motives for auricu-. 
lar confession. Auricular confession is a result of the Inquisition. 
"By the action of the fourth Lateran Council, A. D. 1215, the power 
of the Inquisition was increased, the necessity of private confession 
to a priest — aiiricular confession — being at that time formally estab- 
lished." 68:208. Of course, the Church would have us not to place 
too much confidence in the author of the above history, because he is 
supposed to be not favorably disposed to the Church. But does that 
militate against him? I am not favorably disposed to the Church, in 
one sense of the word, but for all that does any one believe I have 
made misrepresentations so far about the Church? Have I not proved 
every statement made, by the writings of the Church? Well, then, 
we must accept the above as being true. The fact that the Greek 
Church, and also the Arians who separated from the Church in the 
fifth century, practice confession is nothing to the point as to estab- 
lishing the time auricular confession was introduced into the Church, 
for it is said that the Episcopal Church is now beginning to introduce 
it in some places in its Church, and we know it did not practice it at 
the time the Episcopal Church was first organized. It may be seen, 
then, that if the Episcopal Church, in some places, is beginning to 
introduce private confession, that it did not carry the practice with it 
when it left the Catholic Church. Therefore, if the Greek Church 
and the Arians now practice it, it does not prove that they do so 
because they carried that practice with them when they separated 
from the Church. Furthermore, the Church is herself in doubt as to 
the nature of confession of the first Christians. "Whether the first 
Christians, in order to be loosed from their sins, made the confession 
of them in public before the assembled Church, or whether they con- 
fessed them in private to the priests of the Church, are questions 
which the history of the early Church can alone ultimately decide. 
Common sense would seem, however, to point in favor of a private 
confession of sins." 66:32-33. It then says: "It must stand to rea- 
son, that a criminal would refrain from disclosing his crimes to the 
public, for fear of being apprehended by the civil arm and treated 
according to all the rigor of the laws. 66:33. According to this, then, 
a criminal can get absolution without making restitution, that is, 
without suffering the penalties of the law due to his crimes. I always 
thought that a criminal, when he was converted, was willing to confess 
his crimes and suffer the consequences, but here in the Catholic con- 



149 

fessional he can confess his crimes, get absolution and be free, because 
the priest is not permitted to break the seal of the confessional. It 
seems to me that such repentance is of a very poor quality. What 
say you? 

We may then believe, if we choose to, that auricular confession 
was formally established in A. D. 1215, to increase the power of the 
Inquisition, and that it was supplemented by a "decree * * * 
obliging the faithful to confess their sins at least once a year," 
(31:400,) "under pain of mortal sin." 16: April 18, 1902. In making 
such a decree of "obliging the faithful to confess their sins at least 
once a year, under pain of mortal sin," what was the motive which 
actuated the Church to do this in the midst of the persecutions of the 
Inquisition? Why was this decree not made by the Apostles, if the 
Catholic Church is the Apostolic Church, instead of over one thou- 
sand years after the Apostles had passed on? Is this not a suspicious 
circumstance, that such a decree was not made by the Apostles, but 
made over a thusand years after their time, in the midst of the perse- 
cutions of the Inquisition? 

Let us take another look at that decree. Is it not equal to God 
saying to a i:)erson, "You have no choice nor free will, but you must 
become reconciled to me once a year whether you have an inclination 
to do so or not?" What sort of repentance would you call that? I 
thought man was given a free will so he could choose to do what he 
liked, yet here God compels him, if the "voice of the Church is the 
voice of God," (7:343,) to become reconciled with Him "at least once 
a year," whether he feels so inclined or not. Is that Apostolic accord- 
ing to this? "Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we use per- 
suasion to men." 2 Cor. 5:11. Is that persuasion, to oblige one, 
under pain of mortal sin, to become repentant at least once a year, 
and that "at least for a time," which I have shown already, lasts 
usually only for the day on which a "little act of sorrow" was made? 
When one performs a certain religious act only by being obliged to 
do so "under pain of a mortal sin," and does not do so spontaneously, 
do you not think such a one needs to be Scripturally "born again?" 

Is this reasonable and according to the parable of the "Prodigal 
Son?" "Do all the good you can, distribute all you have among the 
poor, scourge yourself to blood every day, fast daily on bread and 
water, pray as long and as much as you are able, shed an ocean of 
tears on account of your sins — do all this, and yet if you have not the 



150 

firm will to confess your sins, 'you will,' says St. Augustine, 'be 
damned for not having been willing to confess them.' [In which I 
agree, partly, if one does not confess to the ones who have been 
offended, be it God or man.] * * * Here, by one act of obedience 
and humility, the proud sinner cancels a whole life of iniquity and 
rebellion." 7:363, 398. [And by reciting a Rosary for a penance.] 
Yes, "confession alone is the true gate to heaven," for "whosoever 
wishes to know whether he is on the way to heaven, or on the way to 
hell, may only examine his life, and see how he makes his confessions. 
* * * For he who makes every month or two a good confession, 
and receives Holy Communion worthily, is doubtless on the road to 
heaven and to perfection. Confession, when often and well made, 
[which implies sinning often, for where there is no sin there is noth- 
to confess] is one of the most powerful means for acquiring virtue, 
piety, and even sanctity." Is that not a misleading belief that "who- 
soever wishes to know whether he is on the way to heaven, or on the 
way to hell, may only examine his life, and see how he makes his con- 
fession," and that "confession, when often and well made, is one of 
the most powerful means for acquiring virtue?" How can one often 
make a ■well made confession unless one sins often? How can the 
drunkard sober up often unless he gets drunk often? If you want to 
know whether you are on the way to heaven, it is to examine your life 
and see how near it is Christ-like, and not how well you make yonr 
confessions. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

I know cases where persons make "every month or two a good con- 
fession," yet their homes are veritable hells, and they are not all 
within, nor all without the circle of my relationship, either. And it is 
because of the effects of such damnable misleading teaching that I so 
strongly inveigh against it. No sins are forgiven unless they are for- 
saken, and no priest can forgive a sinner who sins and repents, sins 
and repents, and wjio re-commits the same sins with more frequency 
than the moon changes, and only stops sinning when one gets on a 
sick-bed! When one is renewed in the spirit of the mind, is "regen- 
erated," converted, "born again," and return to God, just as the Prodi- 
gal Son did to his father, and forsakes sin, one will be forgiven with- 
out the mediation of a priest. And if the sin is a double one, against 
both God and man, then it is to the one whom one has wronged that 
one must go, confess to, and ask forgiveness, and when this is done, 
God will not refuse one forgiveness if one asks Him for it with a 



151 

repentant spirit and a converted heart. And if one is not repentant, 
but only "excites" sorrow and contrition for the purpose of making: 
"well one's confession" — and which "excited" sorrow and contrition 
cools ofP about as quick as it has been "excited," which is usually for 
about one day or "at least for a time" — (5:45,) then no priest nor any 
one else can forgive or pronounce them forgiven, no matter if one does 
say the Rosary or the Litany of the Saints — which are not heard by 
those to whom addressed — for a penance. What was the object in 
Jesus giving the parable of the Prodigal Son but to show us that if 
we have lived in sin, separated from God, that all we need to do is to 
arise, forsake our sins, and go to the Father, and when we do that God 
will ask of us only to give Him our heart, and He will not require of 
us to tell how often we committed this or that sin, just as the father 
of the Prodigal Son did not ask his son how often and what sins he 
had committed against him, but all that he wanted was that the son 
should return to him. If the parable of the Prodigal Son were to be 
a prototype of Catholic confession and forgiveness of sin it would 
have had to have been something on the following order: "And when 
he was yet a great way oflp, his father saw him, and sending one of his 
servants [a priest J to him, with power to remit or retain his sins. 
The son got on his knees before the servant [Priest, Father,] and said 
to him, bless me, for I have sinned: I confess it to Almighty God, to 
blessed Mary ever virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed 
John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the 
Saints, for I am guilty of the following sins: I made sport of my 
father as being an old fogy because he would not live in up to date 
style. Servant — How often did you do this? Son [penitent in con- 
fessional]— I do not know. Servant — Well, about how often in a day, 
or a week or a month? Son — About three times a day. Servant — 
Yes; anything else? Son — I was drunk, and painted the town red. 
Servant — how often? Son— About two times, because in my second 
drunk my female friends robbed me of all the money I had, and the 
chief of police gave me up to a certain hour to get out of the town or 
he would have me arrested for vagrancy. Servant — Anything else? 
Son — No, I believe this is all. Servant — By the power conferred on 
me to bind and loose, I loose thee from all the guilt which thou hast 
incurred by sinning against thy father. And for a penance recite a 
prayer to the goddess, Pallas Athene." [Rosary, to the Blessed Vir- 
gin.] But it does not say that, does it? It does not say that the 



152 

the father [God] sent a servant [priest] to the son [sinners of the 
world] to mediate between him and the son, and that to the servant 
was to be made known "the nature of the malady that afflicts" him so 
he could cure it, does it? 

The parable of the Prodigal Son is squarely against any such an 
institution as auricular confession, and it is squarely for my view of 
how sins are forgiven, namely, forsaking them, and if any are sins 
against our fellowmen then it is to them, and not to one who is not 
connected with it, that we must go to confess, ask forgiveness, and 
make restitution. If that method of confessing were practiced, in- 
sted of confessing to a priest who may be an entire stranger, (35:117,) 
I believe it would be a more effectual bridle on our gossiping, tale- 
bearing, slandering and calumniating tongue; on our dishonesty, 
drunkenness and vice; on our secretly harbored envy, jealousy and 
selfishness, than is the practice of auricular confession, with its pen- 
ances of Rosary, or the Litany of the Saints. Besides the parable of 
the Prodigal Son, the following is to the same point, as expressed in 
my view of confessing: "Confess, therefore, your sins one to another: 
and pray one for another, that you may be saved." Jas. 5:10. If it 
meant here that we should confess to the priests why did it not say so, 
then, for the word priests was no unknown term, having been made 
use of in the same chapter. If "one to another" meant "to the priests," 
then why did it not say so, so there would, then, have been no ques- 
tion as to what was meant? But it was not meant "to the joriests," 
and that is the reason it says "one to another." It means what Dr. 
Dowie says, when he said: "Men, confess to your wives; wives, con- 
fess to your husbands; thieves, confess to those you stole from. If 
you are a servant and stole from your master, confess." And to "do 
right if it takes you to prison, to the gallows." 82:11. Yes, that is 
the way, and not under cover of the seal of the confessional try to 
escape the punishment due for crimes committed. 66:33 

"When is Coufessioxi complete ? Confession is complete when we 
confess at least all the mortal sins that we remember, as well as their 
number and circumstances. What must we do if we cannot recall 
their number? We must tell the number as nearly as we can, and 
declare about how often in a day, week or month we have committed 
the sin." 29:157. Did I misrepresent the mode of Catholic confes- 
sion, when I gave a view of how the parable of the Prodigal Son 
should read if it was intended for a prototype of Catholic confession? 



153 

What are the chief powers of the Priesthood? The chief powers are: 
1. The changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our 
Lord; and 2. The forgiveness of sins." 29:164. Well, I suppose 
you remember how I have demolished the former, and if that was 
only an error it may easily be seen that there is no more truth to the 
latter than there was to the former. The only mission of the priests 
is as ministers of the preaching of the Gospel and of reconciliation, 
and not the making of the "celestial God" from the "slime of the 
earth," or of canceling sin by imposing a penance of the Rosary, or 
the Litany of the Saints, on the penitent, who is penitent, "at least 
for a time." And by reconciliation is not meant to confess to the 
priests, as they claim it means, (66:23,) but it is the preaching of the 
word of reconciliation between man and God, who has become es- 
tranged from God, just as one may be a bearer of a message of recon- 
ciliation between two persons who have become estranged, as, for 
instance, a man and his wife, who have separated yet one or the other 
still loves the other, and would be only too glad to become reconciled 
again, forgive and receive the offender, just as God would be only too 
glad if the sinner would only forsake one's sins and return to Him. 
That is what the "ministry of reconciliation" means. It means that 
God loves us, as did the father the son in the parable, and is ready to 
extend forgiveness to us; and this is the "ministry of reconciliation," 
to bring such a message to us. And God does not require us to re- 
count our sins, as the Church has made it a rule, and which gave the 
occasion for the following story "about a young girl who had gone to 
a priest to confess. After reciting over her list of sins she at last said 
she had been kissed by a young man. 'More than once?' inquired the 
priest. 'See here, father.' replied the young woman, 'I am here to 
confess, not to boast.' " Daily paper, 1902. That the Church requires 
one to confess whether one has kissed any one, or has been kissed, 
may be seen from the following "BeichtsiDiegels" — examinations of 
conscience. [When I used to go to confession before I came home 
here in 1 898, I confessed in German, and therefore had only German 
prayer books, hence the reason for these German quotations, which I 
will translate into English, the best I can, because I am no German — 
nor for that matter an English — scholar.] "Sundigte ich nicht durch 
kusse?" 83:187. [Did I not sin by kissing?] "Habe ich nicht durch 
Kusse versundiget." 84:164. [Have I not sinned by kissing?] Not- 
withstanding that the Church regards kissing between the unmarried 



154 

young — or the old for that matter — a sin, yet in her literature she will 
permit stories to be printed that would tempt any normal person, after 
reading them, to indulge in kisses should the opportunity present 
itself. In one of the Catholic papers of 1901 is a story called "If a 
Woman Will," which ends as follows: "She trembled toward him 
and he took his world in his arms. O magic hour! The wondrous 
glamor of the moonlight flooded the earth with splendor, while the 
silent stars looked down upon the old, old story which is ever new." 
Of course, it says nothing here about kissing, but unless the young 
man belonged to that class of abnormal freaks to which an old ex- 
governor, a college professor, and a music teacher, — all east of the 
Mississippi, for out west here we are so normal that we produce thirty- 
three year old grandmothers — belong, he certainly must have given 
her "Shrewsbury clock" kisses, in that "magic hour" when he held 
"his world in his arms." Is that not so? Do you not think, then, 
that the Church ought to be consistent and not permit stories in her 
literature that would tempt one to implant "Shrewsbury clock" kisses, 
if kissing is a sin, and must be confessed, even to their number, to a 
priest? a. f. y. ["Shrewsbury clock" kisses here mentioned, are of 
"one minute and seven seconds duration," according to the Iconoclast, 
already mentioned in another chapter.] "Priests impose a penance 
on the sinner, as Jesus would do, [also heal the sick,] if He were still 
on earth." 52:37. What penance did Jesus impose on the woman of 
John 8:3? Here it is: Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now 
sin no more." John 8:11. What penance did Jesus impose on the 
man whom He healed of an infirmity of thirty -eight years? "Behold, 
thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to 
thee." John 5:14. What penance did He impose on the man whom 
He healed of the palsy, and to whom he also said: - "Be of good heart, 
son, thy sins are forgiven thee." "Arise, take up thy bed, and go into 
thy house." Matt. 9:6. Is there anything here to indicate that there 
was any penance imposed, except to "sin no more?" Will the reciting 
of the Rosary, or the Litany of the Saints, as a penance, deter any 
one from committing sin? Does it deter any one from dancing the 
"highly indecent, obscene, impure" round dance, although the bishop 
has not given permission to dance them, because the money derived 
from them does not go into the Church's treasury? a. f. y. 

[I wish it understood that whenever I make use of the enclosed 
words in quotation marks about round dances, that it is not, or that it 



155 

is, my sentiment about them, but that it is that of the Church, and to 
which I gave the references when quoting them for the first time.] 

"Most assuredly no human authority could have succeeded in 
laying so heavy a yoke and burden upon men." 7:32. If pagans 
made confessions "into priestly ears," (66:15,) and "That confession 
was in use among the heathens is a fact proved by such abundant and 
such incontestable evidence, that to deny it is to betray a very gross 
ignorance of history. It is an undeniable fact that confession was in 
practice among the pagans of Greece and Rome," (7:345,) then on 
whose authority was that? For it is supposed that pagans and hea- 
thens do not know the God that is, therefore, cannot believe in Him. 
What authority was it, then, but human? What authority is it, then, 
but human for its practice in the Church? Did I not show in a pre- 
vious chapter, the similarities of the rites and ceremonies in the 
Catholic and the Buddhist Churches ? And if the Church copied one, 
may it not copy another of their practices? The heathen and pagan 
practices certainly ante-date those of a later Chnrch, hence it cannot 
be that they copied their practices from the Catholic Church. And 
now, is there really anything hard about a confession so that it can be 
regarded as "so heavy a yoke and burden upon men?" I will let 
priests answer that question, for if I said that I never found it hard it 
might be inferred that I said so from a spirit of animosity." Certainly 
mortal sin deserves something more severe than the easy way that we 
find in the confessional. Confession is not a hard thing, except in our 
imagination. A few words whispered in the kindly ear of the priest, 
a little act of sorrow to Almighty God, a good strong purppse to sin 
no more, [at least for a time,] the words of absolution, and the worst 
leprosy the world has ever known is instantly and entirely healed. 
Was ever a physician more gentle, was ever an operation more quickly 
done?" 53: Sept. 5, 1900. "But is there really anything hard in 
having to go to confession? Either one has nothing particular to tell 
— nothing, at least, which causes shame in telling, — or the reverse is 
the case. If one has nothing difficult to tell, what is there 'hard' 
about confessing? If the contrary be our case, then what is there 
hard in ridding ourselves of what is so painful, by simply mentioning 
it in the Sacred Tribunal with sincere sorrow and purpose of amend- 
ment?" 35:115. And what is more yet to the point is that if one has 
committed any shameful or other sin which one does not like to con- 
fess to a priest who might know one, one can go to another priest, or 



156 

for that matter to a priest in another town who is a stranger, and 
confess to him there. ''The penitent is free to choose a priest who is 
personally a stranger to him; and in any case, must needs confess to 
one who is a poor sinner himself, and who knows that, but for the 
grace of God, he might, in his penitent's place, have done as bad or 
worse." 35:117. Is there anything in the foregoing to indicate that 
it is so hard that human authority could not have laid "so heavy a 
yoke and burden upon men?" a. f. y. 

If God will not forgive a sinner who asks Him, directly, for for- 
giveness, after having complied with, "If you will forgive men their 
offences, your Heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences," 
(Matt. 6:14.) then the petition, "forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
give those who tresjDass against us," which is in the Lord's jjrayer, is 
of no value. And if that petition is of no value, then it is just as 
useless to ask God to "deliver us from evil," for he is supposed to do 
this direct Himself and not through the mediation of a priest. Is that 
not so? a. f. y. When St. John, in his first Epistle said: "I write 
unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His 
name's sake, (I. John 2:12.) had the "little children" made auricular 
confessions to him when he, probably, did missionary work among 
them, and, then, when he left them and arrived at another place he 
sends them absolution by mail — Epistle. 

Is there anything in the following to indicate that repentance 
and forsaking of sin — "sin no more" — is not sufficient for forgiveness, 
and that it requires the enumeration of them before they can be for- 
given? "The repentant son fell on his knees, and with heart-broken 
accents cried out, 'O father, I have sinned against heaven and before 
thee; forgive — •' But the father would not suffer him to continue. 
He had already forgiven everything. He threw his arms around the 
neck of the prodigal." 7:25. Is there any penance imposed in that, 
excepting to repent and return to the father? And as it further says: 
"The rich, liberal, and most kind-hearted father in this story repre- 
sents God the Father, our Lord and Creator. The prodigal represents 
all those who * * * have forfeited the grace and friendship of 
Almighty God by mortal sin," (7:25) is it not an incontrovertible fact, 
then, that no third party has anything to do with the forgiveness of a 
sin that is between God and man, except that the third party is the 
deliverer of a message of reconciliation that God will forgive if one 
but repents and returns to Him. a. f . y. It may be seen, then, from 



. 157 

all that has been brought out that auricular confession to a priest in 
the confessional is only a human institution and a relic of paganism, 
and when the devil is called upon to support such an institution then 
it becomes a doubly assured fact that it is a human institution; for 
the devil is supposed to be an arch liar and, therefore, no credence 
ought to be placed in what he says. Here is his testimony: "Csesar- 
iu3 relates that a theologian of blameless life, being about to die, 
beheld the devil lurking in a corner of his room; [Now, we would, 
probably, call it having "snakes in the boots."] and he addressed the 
fiend in the words of St. Martin: 'What art thou doing there, thou 
cruel beast?' He then, by virtue of his priestly power, [To go to 
bedside of the sick and say to them, "Arise and walk," and they 
walk.] commanded the devil to declare what it was that most injured 
him and his fellows in this world. Though thus adjured, the devil 
remained silent. Not allowing himself to be baffled, the priest con- 
jured the demon, in the name of Grod, to answer him, and answer him 
with truth. [For which the devil is noted.] The evil spirit there- 
upon made this reply: 'There is nothing in the Church which does 
us so much harm, which so unnerves our power, as frequent confes- 
sion.' " 7:450. [Which implies frequent sinning, for it is said that 
"God no longer remembers past offenses which have been forgiven," 
(7:298) and "God pardons like a mother that kisses offense into 
everlasting forgetfulness."] 16:0ct, 31, 1902. Hence, if one goes to 
confession frequently, one must sin frequently, otherwise one would 
have nothing to confess. 

I knew the devil would be onto his job. 

From all that has been said so far on the subject under consider- 
ation, are there not sufficient reasons for questioning the truth of the 
doctrine of auricular confession? The impossible to be heard im- 
posed penances, and the testimony of the devil in regard to it, are 
alone sufficient to destroy the doctrine, without taking into consider- 
ation the many other arguments that have, I believe, reasonably sure 
been refuted with the "arms of the intellect." If any should feel 
with confession, as the Church practices it, destroyed, they would be 
driven to despair by their concern over a wayward relative or friend 
who could not be absolved from sin by a priest — shoiild such a one 
become converted and be touched with repentance before death over- 
takes one, — to such I say that they need not despair. Let such think 
of the parable of the Prodigal Son, that God will be only too glad if a 



158 

sinner repents and forsakes the sins, that all will be forgiven without 
an enumeration of the sins and an absolution by the priest, with the 
Rosary or the Litany of the Saints, — which cannot be heard by those 
to whom addressed, — imposed as a penance. With confession, as the 
Church teaches it, removed as a barrier between Catholic and non- 
Catholic Christians, have I not brought them still another step closer 
together? The way is not quite clear yet for a union of them, but I 
believe there are only three more barriers in the way, and these are 
the doctrines of Indulgences, Purgatory, and the Infallibility of the 
Pope, the latter doctrine of which ought to, by this time, be tolerably 
well undermined. By the time I am through with the doctrines of 
Indulgences, and of Purgatory, no doubt the other doctrine will be so 
undermined that it will collapse from its own weight of error. We 
will then examine next the doctrines of Indulgences and of Purga- 
tory, together, for they are closely inter-related to each other. 



CHAPTER VI. 



INDULGENCES AND PURGATORY. 

As the preaching of the doctrine of Indulgences was, no doubt, 
the primary cause of the Reformation of the sixteenth century we will 
see what is meant by them. That it is a license to commit sin, as 
some non-Catholics have maintained, is a false belief, for it is nothing 
of the kind. The real nature of its meaning is far different from that 
of a license to sin. Here is the Church's teachings on them: "What 
is an Indulgence? An Indulgence is a remission, granted out of the 
Sacrament of Penance, (Confession,) of that temporal punishment 
which, even after the sin is forgiven, we have yet to undergo, either 
here or in Purgatory. * * * How many kinds of Indulgences are 
there? There are two kinds: A Plenary Indulgence, which is the 
remission of the whole debt of temporal punishment due to sin; and 
a Partial Indulgence, which is a remission of a part of it only. What 
is meant by an Indulgence of forty days or seven years? A remission 
of such a debt of temporal jjunishment as a person would discharge if 
he did penance for forty days or seven years, according to the ancient 
Canons of the Church. * * * Can Indulgences also be rendered 
available to the souls in Purgatory? Yes, all those which the Poj^e 
has expressly declared to be applicable to them." 30:291-293-294. 

That, then, is the meaning of Indulgences "a remission * * * 
of that temporal punishment which, even after the sin is forgiven, we 
have yet to undergo." The parable of the Prodigal Son, alone, would 
refute such a doctrine, but I will give some quotations of the Church 
which completely refutes it from the fact that the Church contradicts 
herself. "In Holy Scripture we read of the conversion of many sin- 
ners. But never do we read of a reproach made by God to a sinner 
after his conversion. * * * Grod no longer remembers past offenses 
which have been once forgiven." 7:298. "God pardons like a mother 
that kisses the offense into everlasting forgetfulness." 16: Oct. 13, 
1902, Short Sermons. Does not the Church contradict herself, then, 
when she says that "God pardons the offense into everlasting forget- 
fulness," and that an Indulgence is "a remission of that temporal pun- 
ishment which, even after the sin is forgiven, we have yet to undergo?" 



L60 

If you cannot see a contradiction in that, then may the Lord have 
pity on you and open your eyes. What has already been said about 
Indulgences proves that it is a self-contradictory error, and it would 
seem that it were a waste of time and space to say anything more 
about it, but as I have said already that I would rather have ninety- 
nine points to spare than to fall short one of accomplishing my object, 
I will, therefore, devote some more time and space to it. "In our 
days, on account of the weakness of the faithful, the Church is lenient. 
Besides the ecclesiastical, the spiritual punishments which would have 
to be suffered either here or in purgatory for the taking away of sins, 
[which Grod has pardoned 'into everlasting f orgatf ulness' ] are short- 
ened and mitigated by Indulgences." 5:553. Thus, when the Church 
once "imposed great penances upon sinners for their sins which were 
already forgiven," as "'for instance, murder or adultery was punished 
by a penance of twenty years; perjury eleven; fornication, denial of 
faith or fortune -telling, by seven years of severe penance with fasting, 
etc." and "during this time it was not allowed to travel, except on foot, 
to be present at the Sacrifice of the Mass, or to receive the holy 
Eucharist," (5:553,) while now, on account of the "weakness of the 
faithful, the Church is lenient" and, in place of imposing the above 
mentioned penance, grants Indulgences. Hence, if one is now guilty, 
for instance, of adultery, goes to confession, recites as a penance the 
Rosary or the Litany of the Saints — which are not heard by those to 
whom addressed — receives Communion, and then says before a Cru- 
cifix (43:205) a prayer of about ninety words and five Our Fathers 
and five Hail Marys one may obtain a Plenary Indulgence, "which is 
the remission of the whole debt" of twenty years that was formerly 
imposed as a penance by the Church for the sin of adultery. Accord- 
ing to this the Church has indeed become "lenient" in our days, "on 
account of the weakness of the faithful." Now, the question may be 
asked, Was the Church prompted by God to act in that manner or did 
she do it of her own accord? She says "the voice of the Church is 
the voice of God." 7:343. Was the foregoing acts of the Church 
according to the "voice of God?" The Church must say yes, other- 
wise she cannot escape the charge of being a "human system." If we 
then say that it was the "voice of God," then is God not changeable, 
because He now does not require the same measure of punishment 
of sins that He once did? Is it true that God commanded the pun- 
ishment with death "the adulterer and the adulteress" (Lev. 20:10) in 



161 

the Old Dispensation; the punishing of them, at one time, in the New 
Dispensation by a penance of twenty years, and now remits their pun- 
ishment by a Plenary Indulgence, "on account of the weakness of the 
faithful?" Is all that according to the "voice of God?"' If it is not, 
then the whole scheme is man-made, and if it is, then who can tell 
whether Grod may not one day become so "lenient"' on account of the 
"weakness" of the human race and send His voice to the world saying: 
"I will no longer regard adultery a sin, and will give you another com- 
mandment — the twelfth — See that you don't get caught, — otherwise 
the woman's husband or the man's wife might make work for the 
coroner, — for I will be 'lenient' with you on account of your weakness." 
If it was the voice of God that spoke to Moses in Leviticus 20:10, 
and in an earlier age and in the latter days of the Church, it would 
make it appear that God was, on the one hand, becoming more "len- 
ient on account of the weakness of the faithful," and on the other 
hand becoming more severe, because He once was so "lenient" as to 
permit a man to divorce his wife if "she find not favor in his eyes for 
some uncleanness," (Deut. 24:1) [Slouchiness, slatternness, etc.] and 
now he cannot do so according to the Church which is His voice. Is 
there not in this an inconsistency in God? There are in this two 
views of God's character which contradict each other, do they not? I 
think that when it comes right down to the point it will be found 
that it was not the voice of God, but the doings of Moses and the 
Popes. If the Jewish Church was once the "true Church and taught 
the true worship of God," (50:98) why did Jesus abolish it? 31:102. 
Will it be said that God is not ominiscient and wise enough to formu- 
late at once a perfect standard of morals and religion, and that He had 
to experiment like a man does with an invention before he gets it 
perfected, or did the human race evolve from the monkey or ape, as 
unblieving scientists would have its believe, and was, therefore, at the 
beginning incapable of assimilating real truth and morality; a higher 
standard of which it was only capable of preceiving as the race ad- 
vanced in civilization and enlightenment? Which horn of that 
dilemma will you take? As for me, I take neither of them. The 
Jewish religion, as a whole, was no more the true religion of God than 
is the Roman Catholic religion, as a whole, the true religion of Christ, 
nor did the human race develop from the animal — ape or monkey — 
kingdom. Man was man from the beginning of his creation, and 
never evolved from a lower animal, hence he was always susceptible 



162 . 

of the perfect standard of truth and morality. Therefore, when the 
Mosaic Law against adultery was proclaimed; the Church's Law of 
punishment with a twenty year j)enance at one time, and the remis- 
sion of the punishment now for the same offense by Indulgences was 
made, they were nothing more or less than man made, for God is 
unchangeable, and what was once a sin with Him will always remain 
a sin, and will always have the same measure of punishment, and 
always the same mode of forgiveness, namely, repentance, conversion, 
and the forsaking of it — '"sin no more." 

Is that not a just and reasonable view of the matter, and if it is, 
is it not apparent to you now that the doctrine of Indulgences is only 
a man-made one? a device introduced into the Church to equal the 
promises of Mahomet and excite the enthusiasts to a crusade against 
him? "When the Church sought to arouse Europe to supreme exer- 
tion for the redemption of the Holy Supulchre some infinite reward 
was requisite to excite the enthusiastic fanaticism requisite for the 
crusades. If Mahomet could stimulate his followers to court death 
by the i3romise of immediate and eternal bliss to him who fell fight- 
ing for the Crescent, the vicegerent of the true G-od must not be 
behind-hand in his promises to the martyrs of the Cross. It was a 
death-struggle between the two faiths, and Christianity must not be 
less liberal than Islam in its bounty to its recruits. Accordingly 
when Urban II held the great Council of Clermont, which resolved on 
the first crusade, * * * the device of plenary indulgences was 
introduced, and the military pilgrims were exhorted to have full faith 
that those who fell repentant would gain the completest fruit of eter- 
nal mercy. The device was so successful that it became an established 
rule in all the holy wars in which the Church engaged." 85:42, Vol. 
1. Yes, and when once introduced the Church could not consistently, 
with her claim to Infallibility, abolish the practice of granting Indul- 
gences, the granting of which had become so abused that they could 
finally be bought. It was this selling of Indulgences which aroused 
Luther against them, and not because the order of Augustinians, to 
which he belonged, was not given the same privilege to preach them 
as was given the Dominicans, as a Catholic writer says, ''This prefer- 
ence * * * Luther could not brook." 47:52. For if God is no 
respecter of persons why should He, through His Vicar, Leo X, grant 
a privilege to one order as against another, and if the Church is one 
in her teachings, why should not all her religious orders have the 



163 

same doctrines to preach? If one lives in a community governed by 
Dominicans is the way there to heaven different from that of the way 
of the Augustinian governed community? If not, then why give one 
the privilege to preach a doctrine not granted another, and if the way 
is different what is this distinction but a man-made one? "He 
[Luther] found occasion for this proceeding [of fixing upon the doors 
of Wittenbery copies of ninety-five theses for a disputation on the 
efficacy of Indulgences] in the sermons of John Tetzel, a Dominican 
frjar * * * who had been chosen by Albert, Archbishop of Mentz 
and Prince Elector, to publish in the north of Germany the Indul- 
gence which Leo X had just granted to the Catholic world. The pro- 
ceeds of this Indulgence [This sounds a little like selling them] were 
to be devoted to the building of St. Peter's Basilica at Rome. Tetzel 
preached before large crowds of people. In his instructions to pastors 
and confessors he required the necessary conditions prescribed by the 
Church for the gaining of Indulgences, the receiving of the Sacra- 
ments of Penance and Holy Communion. [And, probably, one who 
had plenty of money and wanted to help St. Peter's along, by obtain- 
ing many Indulgences, would only need to sin frequently in order to 
"go to confession frequently," for ''God pardons offenses into ever- 
lasting forgetfulness."] The preachers of the Indulgence were 
required to lead a good life and to avoid taverns, suspicious inter- 
course and all unnecessary expense. Nevertheless, the enforcements 
of the Holy See were sometimes neglected; and it is a sad truth that 
the personal axipearance of some preachers together with the manner 
iix which they offered and praised the Indulgence, was the cause of 
great scandal." 86:8, 9. Probably, after reading that, there may be 
some truth in this: "Whosoever shall say that the soul does not take 
its flight from Purgatory, immediately that the money is dropped into 
the chest is in error. — Tetzel." L5:87. Let us see whether there may 
not have been another cause that aroused Luther besides "this prefer- 
ence" which "Luther could not brook." "I will not deny that Indul- 
gences have been abused; but are not the most sacred things liable 
to be perverted? This is a proper place to refer briefly to the Bull of 
Pope Leo X, proclaiming the Indulgence which afforded Luther a 
pretext for his apotasy. Leo determined to bring to completion the 
magnificent church of St. Peter. * * * With that view he issued 
a Bull promulgating an Indulgence to such as would contribute some 
voluntary offering toward the erection of the grand cathedral." 



164 

31 :434. I will now give a quotation that you may see that Indulgences 
have been granted at the request of persons long after the time of 
Christ, which must make Indulgences a human device. "Under dpte 

of November 30, 1900, His Eminence, Cardinal — , Bishop of 

, addressed the following letter to His Holiness, Pope Leo 

XIII.: 'Most Holy Father: Your Holiness consecrated the nations 

to the Heart of Jesus, and told us in the glorious Encyclical 

that the salvation of the world was in this new 'Labarum.' In order 
that this great act may bear more abundant fruit, would your Holiness 
deiffu to grant the favor of a plenary Indulgence to the faithful who 
would communicate during the next year of the First Friday of each 
month * * * in order to offer to His Divine Heart the Twentieth 
Century and to consecrate it to Him? * * *' In response to the 
f oreo-oing the following Rescript of the Holy Father granting increased 
Indulgences during the present year was issued: 'Our Holy Father, 
* * * has vouchsafed to all the faithful a plenary Indulgence 
applicable to the souls in Purgatory. 1st. To those who on the First 
Friday of each month during the year 1901 in conformity with the 
intention expressed in the above supplication, having confessed their 
sins and being truly contrite, shall receive communion and shall pray 
for some time for the intention of His Holiness." 53: Jan. 23, 1901. 
Here is the way of the origin of a plenary Indulgence, of which one 
can "-ain one hundred more or less according, I suppose, if one can 
recite prayers that are like the one a priest once said of the way a 
little child recited so easily and fast the Our Father and Hail Mary, 
"Es geht wie geschmirt." [That goes like greased.] 

"In 1221, on the anniversary of the dedication of his little chapel 
St. Francis was favored with a vision on the Altar of our Divine Lord 
and His Blessed Mother in a glory of soft light. As he fell on his 
face our Lord accosted him in these words ; * * * 'Francis, ask 
of Me what thou wilt, for the salvation of souls, for I have given thee 
to the world to be the light of peoples and the support of My Church.' 
After a moment's pause, Francis answered: 'O, thrice Holy God! If 
I have found favor in Thy eyes, grant that all who, contrite and 
absolved, visit this little church may receive a full pardon of all their 
sins and of the punishment due to their sins.' There was no answer 
immediately, as if the favor were too great, and Francis beseeched 
the Mother of God to aid his plea. [Who was already several millions 
of petitions behind on her list.] 'Go then,' said our Lord, 'to My 



165 

Vicar and demand this Indulgence in My name.' Francis lost no 
time in repairing to Rome with two companions, and presenting his 
petition to Pope Honorius III, in these words: 'Most Holy Father, a 
few years ago I repaired a little church in your dominions dedicated 
to the Mother of God. [Like the great temple of Diana, at Ephesus, 
was dedicated to gods.] I beg your Holiness to enrich it with a valu- 
able Indulgence without the obligation of almsgiving.' 'For how long 
a time, my son, do you wish this influence?' 'Holy Father, may it 
please you to grant me souls not years. I ask all who, repentant and 
absolved, shall visit the Church of St. Mary of the Angels shall receive 
plenary remission of their sins for this world and the next.' 'What 
thou asketh is great and quite unusual at the Court of Rome,' ans- 
wered the Pope. 'I dp not ask it in my own name, but in the name 
of Jesus Christ, who has sent me,' Francis answered. And, inspired 
by the Holy Ghost, [Like Leo XIII was when he said: "Christ is 
not put on excei^t by the frequentation of the Eucharistic table."] the 
PontiflP replied promptly, and repeated it three times: 'In the name 
of Our Lord, we are i^leased that thou shouldst have this indulgence.' 
* * * Such was the commencement of the great pardon of St. 
Francis. (Called the "Portiuncula.") For two hundred years it was 
confined to that little chapel of the Portiuncula, which was, each 2nd 
of August, the scene of a wondrous gathering of penitents. After 
this the Pope was moved [How or why it does not say] to extend it 
to all the Franciscan churches of the world. [The Dominicans and 
Augustinians were bed-fellows in this case for they surely had occa- 
sion not to "brook" this "preference," like Luther, of the Augustin- 
ians, later "could not brook" that the Dominicans, and not thw 
Augustinians also, were given the "ijreference" to preach the Indul- 
gence which was promulgated for the purpose of securing funds to 
complete St. Peter's.] Confession and communion and a visit to the 
church so privileged are all that is necessary to gaining the Indul- 
gence of the Portiuncula. One may not gain it but once for himself, 
but he may gain it as many as one hundred times for the souls in 
purgatory if he can go in and pray [Es geht wie geshmirt] and come 
out again so often. There is no set form or duration of prayer. Five 
Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Glorias in unison with the sovereign 
PotifP's prayers are recommended, but any form may be followed." 
6: July 25, 1902. 

Oh, how apostolic that is! Purgatory, on the morning of August 



166 

3d every year, must present a deserted appearance, if one may gain 
"as many as one hundred" indulgences on August 2d, "for the souls in 
purgatory if he can go in and pray [Es geht wie geschmirt] and can 
go out again so often," should only one in two hundred and fifty 
Catholics the world over gain as many indulgences as one could on 
that day, which may be as many as "one hundred," and if these indul- 
gences are a "plenary remission of their sins for this world and the 
next." No doubt, on the occasion of this short interval of deserted- 
ness, the keepers of purgatory are given a chance to rest up a little 
from their fatigue of tormenting the souls whom the "Lord loves 
tenderly," (65:27,) "the spirits of the elect," (49:93,) the "beloved 
spouses of Christ," (1:69, Nov. 1902,) who got to purgatory by "a 
stretch of the Divine Mercy," (11:394,) for if it had not been for "a 
stretch of the Divine Mercy" they would have landed in hell instead. 
What a kind, loving, merciful Being this God of the Catholics is, 
"who pardons offenses into everlasting forgetfulness," yet at "a stretch 
of the Divine Mercy" manages to get His "beloved spouses," whom 
He "loves tenderly" into purgatory instead of into hell. It is like a 
man who loves his wife so "tenderly," because she is his "beloved 
spouse," who would tell his wife that business is not very flush and 
that she could order only an Easter hat that would not cost over ten 
dollars. She goes to a millinery store, looks at a number of hats that 
are quite becoming to her, which may be had for ten dollars, but there 
is a hat for fifteen dollars that all in the store say, "You look so much 
more becoming in that hat," that she is finally persuaded to order it. 
Bless their dear, feminine hearts, who but whiskey soaks, or "stink- 
pots," (87:13,) as Dr. Dowie — not I — call users of tobacco, would 
begrudge his "beloved spouse" whom he "loves tenderly," an extra five 
dollars for a hat in which she looks "so much more becoming?" Well, 
when the bill of fifteen dollars is presented, his lordship becomes 
wrathy and with blood in his eyes he goes home to his "beloved 
spouse" whom he "loves tenderly" and begins to abuse her, curses and 
swears, because she dared to offend his majesty. She gets on her 
knees — perish the thought of a man ever requiring this of his wife, 
to get on her knees before him to plead for his forgiveness — before 
him and implores his forgiveness. She being his "beloved spouse" 
whom he "loves tenderly" forgives her, but requires her to live on 
bread and water [penance of the Church here or in purgatory] for so 
long a time as that which would be required to make up the extra five 



167 

dollars saved on her living, between the cost of the bread and water 
and the regular meals, that his offended justice may be satisfied. 
What would you think of a man who treated his wife, whom he "loves 
tenderly'' because she is his "beloved spouse," in the manner de- 
scribed? What has he really forgiven her? Nothing, excepting the 
everlasting "jawing" he would, probably, have given her had she not 
implored his forgiveness. Is that not a perfect illustration of the 
doctrine of the Church, which promulgates her purgatory as a place 
of "temporary punishment, alotted for those who have died in venial 
sin, or who have not satisfied the justice of God for sins already for- 
given?" 31:247. [Pardoned "into everlasting forgetfulness."] What 
has God forgiven if He requires satisfaction for sins forgiven? Do 
you call that a pardon, forgiveness, if one who has wronged you 
implores, asks your forgiveness, you grant it, yet you do not forgive 
and forget the offense forever? 

The doctrine of purgatory as promulgated by the Catholic Church 
is a God dishonoring one. and is merely a human invention that would 
yield revenues to the Church by getting people to have Masses said 
for the souls in purgatory, telling them that the "sacrifice of the Mass 
is to be preferred above all,"' (65:23,) and that Mass "is our chief 
action upon purgatory,'' (11:403.) and it might not be far amiss to add, 
"and on the pocketbooks of the faithful,'" — as I have already shown in 
a previous chapter. Yes, the Church can reach "efficaciously to them 
[souls in purgatory] most of all by her device of privileged altars." 
11:400. It seems as though there were some truth in this: "At the 
end of the thirteenth century a new kingdom was discovered, capable 
of yielding irnmerise revenue. This was purgatory." 68:278. "The 
name of purgatory was first authoritively given to the Intermediate 
State in 1254 by Innocent IV.. who was of the house of Fieschi, the 
family of our Saint [Catherine.]"' )11:385.) Well, St. Catherine 
figures quite prominently in the scheme of purgatory, and it is her 
"wonderful and exquisitely beautiful treatise"' on it tliat has given 
her "a rank among the theologians of the Church." 11:393. 

Let us now see what sort of a place purgatory is where are the 
souls whom the Lord "loves tenderly,"' the "beloved spouses of Christ"' 
who are there punished to satisfy the "justice of God for sins already 
forgiven," as the man, in my illustration, has forgiven his wife by com- 
pelling her to live on bread and water until his "justice"' —the extra 
five dollars — is "satisfied." "Many theologians have said, not only 



ifiS 

that the least pain of purgatory was greater than the greatest pain of 
earth, [as for instance, burning out the eyes of one at the stake before 
the flame is applied at the fagot that is to devour by slow indescribable 
torture the victim] but greater than all pains of earth put together." 
11:380. This divine sacrifice [the Mass] not only avails for the souls 
of the dead, as propitiatory and satisfactory of their jjenance, but it 
also assists as a great act of supplication for them, conformably, you 
see, to the custom of the Church, which not only offers Mass for the 
souls that are being purified, but prays during the sacrifice for their 
liberation. In order, then, that you may be stirred to compassion [so 
that you will open your purse and give the "poverty-vowed" ambassa- 
dors of Christ, who already receive a regular salary that is greater 
than yours, "honorariums" of five dollars for a High Mass, one dollar 
for a Low Mass, and no money no Mass] for the holy souls, know that 
the fire by which the)*are covered is one so devouring that, according 
to the opinion of St. Gregory, it is no less so than [according to my 
"opinion," an infernal, blasphemous lie] that of hell, operating as the 
instrument of divine justice with such force as to render their pains 
insufferable greater than all the possible martyrdoms that can be wit- 
nessed or felt, or even imagined, here below. Still more than all this, 
the pain of loss afflicts them because, deprived as they are of the 
beatific vision [In which the Blessed Virgin beholds "all things" at 
the rate of over forty-six thousand at once, simultaneously,] of Grod, 
they, as the Angelic Doctor [I wonder if this is one of those Saints 
a writer had in mind when he said: "Some of the saints who have 
been canonized should have been cannonaded?"] says, experience an 
intolerable passion, an intense and vivid desire to behold the Supreme 
Good, [Supreme fiend, if the teachings of the Church were true] and 
this is not ijermitted them?" 49:87-88. If you are a non-Catholic 
you will probably say. Surely the Chiirch does not teach such views 
of purgatory and hell now, for that niight have been fit teaching for 
the so-called "Dark Ages," but not for this enlightened age. Do not 
be deceived. 

On Sunday, November 16, 1902, — note the date — a priest preached 
on hell, taking for his text Job 5:27. The sermon was in the main 
after the view, already mentioned, of hell as given in the book "Prodi- 
gal Son." There were times during the sermon, when he uttered the 
most God degrading, calumnious and blasphemous sentences, that I 
believe, if I had not the writing of this book under way at the time, 



169 

and were an orphan, that I would have created a sensation in church 
by crying out, "That is a most infernal, damnable and blasphemous 
lie!!!" Then in another breath, Father Faber, from whom I have 
already quoted on the views of the pains of purgatory, apparently 
contradicts himself for he says, quoting St. Catherine: "I do not 
believe that it is possible to find a cententment to compare with that 
of the souls in purgatory, unless it be the contentment of the Saints 
in paradise." 11:390. If that is true, then, why in the name of com- 
mon sense not leave the souls in purgatory until they have "satisfied 
the justice of God for sins already forgiven,'" and spend the money, 
that is spent for Masses for the souls in purgatory, towards relieving 
the discontented poor widow with a family of children to supjjort, 
some of whose children are deprived from attending school, because 
they have to help the poor widowed mother support the fatherless 
children? Go to such a widow and say. Here are two or more dollars 
a week, which your child is earning, take your child out of the depart- 
ment store or the factory, and send it to school. Would that not be 
better, then, than to spend money for Masses — which I have already 
shown is only a species of error, idolatry and superstition — for the 
souls in purgatory, whose contentment is only exceeded by the "con- 
tentment of the Saints in paradise?" But, then, I suppose, these 
contradictions of the Church is only "verbiage," which, the more there 
is that the faithful do not understand, the more do they admire, accord- 
ing to what one theologian wrote to another, and to which I have 
already made reference. I was that way once, but since I have had 
the scales taken from my eyes I do not admire "verbiage" so much as 
I used to. And now, despite the saying that it was almost "a stretch 
of Divine Mercy" to get to purgatory instead of to hell, one can 
escape purgatory by gaining Indulgences, and in various other ways, 
one of which is as follows: "St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi told her 
novices to offer to God's glory, if it were possible, the very winking of 
their eyes, and the slightest motions of their limbs; and she prom- 
ised them [she must be a god] if they would act in this way, that they 
should go straight to heaven, after their death, without the pains of 
purgatory." 11:203. 

If the chorus girls, in tights, only knew of this what a bee line 
they would have to heaven when they died, for they have so many of 
the "slightest motions of their limbs," when on the stage trying to 
keep time to rag-time music. No wonder that the devotion of "Holy 



170 

souls" in purgatory "teems with doctrine." (11:423.) Nearly every- 
thing in the Catholic Church seems to "teem with doctrine." In a 
small pamphlet of the "Arch-Confraternity for the relief of the Souls 
in Purgatory" is given a list of twenty days especially on which mem- 
bers of the'Confratemity may gain plenary Indulgences during each 
year, besides one at the hour of death. If one can gain a plenary 
indulgence at the hour of death, (43:565.) why is such a one still 
prayed for, and having Masses said for also, if a plenary indulgence is 
a full remission of temporal punishment "either here or in purgatory?" 
If one has not made a worthy Confession and Communion, at the hour 
of death, it is supposed to be a sacrilege, in which case one would go 
to hell, out of which there is no redemption anyway, according to the 
Church, and if one has made a worthy Confession and Communion 
and thereby gains a plenary indulgence, what more is there to be 
remitted for such a soul? Only some more "verbiage," for the un- 
thinking, (43:565,) — suppose. "Poverty, disease, all sorts of adversi- 
ties and accidents, we should endeavor to liberate ourselves from them 
by means of indulgences." 5:552. That is why Catholics are so free 
from poverty, disease, adversities and accidents, they keep themselves 
liberated from them by "means of indulgences," which a person may 
gain by the score each day, even by reciting prayers that are lies. 
The following is a sample, the "Acts of Theological Virtues," (43:82- 
83,) to which Pope Benedict XIV. granted an indulgence of seven 
years and seven quarantines, each time you say the following acts: 
Faith, Hope and Love. I will give you the Act of Love, to show that 
it is a lying prayer, as I said it is: "O My God, I love Thee above all 
things with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art infinitely 
worthy of love; I love also my neighbor as myself for the love of 
Thee. I forgive all who have injured me and ask pardon of all whom 
I have injured." 43:83. 

Is that a prayer? What thing has been asked for in it? Is it 
not a telling of how virtuous one is, how one loves God and one's 
neighbor? How much better a prayer is it than the one the Pharisee 
said, in which he said in part: "I fast twice in a week: I give tithes 
of all that I possess." (Luke 18:12,) and which brought on him con- 
demnation as much as the rest of his prayer did? Is that loving God 
above all things with whole heart and soul, when one has to go to 
confession frequently? Is that loving one's neighbor as one's self 
when one will have nothing to do with a church society or a person, 



171 

because some are "kitchen mecljanics/' "pot slingers," "common labor- 
ers," or "mud sills of society," [The poor? j If one's neighbor meant 
a pretty eighteen-year-old Irish girl, and one is a young man under 
thirty years of age, one might truthfully say, "I love also my neighbor 
as myself," but otherwise it can hardly be true. Yet for telling Grod 
lies one can gain an Indulgence of seven years every time one tells 
them. Besides that it says: "As these acts of Faith, Hope and 
Charity [Love] are so necessary for salvation, every Christian should 
recite them frequently."' 43:84. 

The more lies the better for Catholic salvation. Surely a true 
saying: "When the blind leads the blind both fall into the pit," that 
is very applicable to the Church. After I became a "regular heretic," 
and made the discovery that I loved an eighteen-year-old Irish girl 
more than I loved God, for the loss of God, through mortal sin, did 
not afFect me like the loss of the girl, I made use of the following 
"heretical" prayer which is a "gratuitous insult to God:" 63:172. 
"O God, enkindle in my heart that love for Thee, and for my fellow- 
men, which I should have, that I may do what is pleasing to Thee." 
Which of the two prayers, that of the Church with a seven year Indul- 
gence, or that of mine with no Indulgence, is the more like a prayer? 
a. f. y. 

I will now give more ways in which Indulgences may be gained. 
"An Indulgence of one hundred days for devoutly kissing the medal 
of the Immaculate Conception and saying, 'Mary, conceived without 
sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." " 43:487. "Litany of 
Our Lady of Sorrows. This Litany was written by Pope Pius VII. 
in his captivity. He granted a Plenary Indulgence to all who recite 
it with a contrite heart on Fridays." 43:450. For a prayer of about 
seventy-five words to the Blessed Virgin, "Indulgence of 300 days." 
43:499. The three following prayers have each an Indulgence of 100 
days attached to them. "In thy conception, O Mary, thou wert immac- 
ulate, pray for us to the Father, whose Son Jesus Christ thou wert 
worthy to bear." "Blessed be the pure, holy and immaculate concep- 
tion of the Virgin Mary!" "O sweetest Heart of Mary, be my refuge." 
43:500. The following are Indulgence prayers from the "Raccolta," 
and in which the Council of Trent says of Indulgences: "The use of 
Indulgences is in the highest degree wholesome to Christian people." 
(The Ave Maria, Notre Dame, Indiana.) "Blessed be the holy and 
Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of 



172 

God! Indulgence of 300 days, every time." "Mary, Mother of God 
and Mother of mercy, pray for me and for the departed! Indulgence 
of 100 days, once a day." Then there is a prayer of about two hun- 
dred words to St. Joseph, [The Vice-sub God] to which is attached 
"an indulgence of 7 years and 7 quarantines for each recital." I have 
now given you a few samples of how Indulgences may be gained, and 
they are for prayers to beings for whom, as I have already proven, 
mathematically, it is an utter impossibility to hear the jjetitions that 
are addressed to them. Now, if you can say prayers ''es geht wie 
geschmirt," just see the good works you can lay up where "thieves 
cannot break in nor moths can corrupt," and all this without going to 
Confession and Communion. 

I will now give a few samples of how Plenary Indulgences may 
be gained where the reception of the Sacrarments is a prerequisite. 
"The following Indulgences, [Of which I will give only the plenary] 
taken from an authentic copy of the briefs preserved in the archives 
of the Monastery of St. Paul * * * Rome, were granted by Bene- 
dict XIV., to all who wear a proi^erly blessed medal of our Holy 
Father St. Benedict : — 1 . A Plenary Indulgence and remission of all 
punishment due to sin, on condition of worthily approaching the 
Sacraments of Confession and Communion, and praying for the extir- 
pation of heresies and schisms, [Should have been, "for the extirpation 
of idolatry in the Church, | for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, 
[Which I am doing,] for the j^eaoe and concord of Christian princes, 
and for the welfare of the Church, on the following feasts," (43:618,) 
of which fourteen are given. "A prayer before a crucifix to which 
Pope Pius VII, has annexed a Plenary Indulgence, which all the 
faithful may obtain if, after having confessed their sins with contri- 
tion and worthily received the Holy Communion, they shall devoutly 
recite before an image or representation of Christ crucified." 43:205. 
The prayer contains about ninety words after which one is to say five 
Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. Yet the Church places no "super- 
stitious value" (45:168,) on idols and crucifixes. Well, after reading 
what I have already said about Indulgences, is it not about becoming 
apparent to you that they are worth nothing and are simply human 
inventions? If I went into the business of granting Indulgences I 
would grant them for acts and sayings, about which there would be 
no question whether they would be heard or not. For instance, I 
would grant an Indulgence of 100 days every time a woman met a 



173 

"kitchen mechanic,"' with whom she is acquainted, greeted her with a 
smile, and said, "Good morning, Mary," instead of saying to one who 
cannot hear you, "O sweetest Heart of Mary, be my refuge !" I would 
grant an Indulgence of 300 days, if a woman met a "pot slinger," with 
whom she was acquainted, and in the presence of a member of the 
"400" with whom she happened to be walking, would greet her with a 
smile and a hearty hand shake and say, "I am glad to see you Mary, 
how are you getting along, how is your mother and the rest of your 
people ?" I would grant an Indulgence of 7 years and 7 quarantines 
if a Mrs. Pork Packer, or Banker, or Rent Roll, or "Merger," or Capi- 
talist took a "common laborer" in a dry goods, or millinery, or some 
other store, with whom she is acquainted, for a drive on Sunday after- 
noon, between 3 and 5 o'clock, on the boulevard where the "400" are 
mostly to be seen. I would grant a Plenary Indulgence if a member 
of the "400" would give a party to which the "common laborers" — 
girl clerks, stenographers, and typewriters — were invited; a Plenary 
Indulgence to one who met a priest smoking a cigar and would stop 
him, whether acquainted with him or not, and say to him, "Rev. Dear 
Sir, please throw that cigar, you are smoking, into the gutter, for you 
are setting a bad example for the young boys, because example is 
more powerful than precept;" a Plenary Indulgence to a married man 
who never left his home in the evening without taking his wife with 
him, and who instead of spending his time and money in the saloon 
or gambling house, spent them with his wife and family; an Indul- 
gence of 7 years if, instead of abusing and "jawing" his wife for paying 
five dollars more for a hat than he said she could, he would caress her 
and give her a "Shrewsbury clock" kiss, and say, "O sweetheart, that 
will be all right," when she tells him what she did; a Plenary Indul- 
gence if one pays visits to a sick acquaintance who is poor and lonely, 
instead of making visits to a wafer in a church, etc., etc. Of course, 
Indulgences such as I would grant would not be "ecclesiastical," and 
would, therefore, not be according to the "voice of Grod," as given us 
through the Church, but they would be "heretically" practical and 
meritorious, would they not? a. f. y. 

There is another phase to this theme under consideration, and 
that is this: Would an indulgence which remits all punishments due 
to sin, either here or in purgatory, be a just one? Supposing a man 
wrecks a savings bank or absconds with trust funds, some of whose 
victims are aged and sickly persons whose substance has been swept 



174 

away, and. who, some of them, destroy themselves on account of brood- 
ing over their loss — who, for destroying themselves, would gc to hell, 
according to the teachings of the Church — becomes converted shortly 
before he dies, makes a confession, receives Communion, and gains a 
plenary indulgence, would this be just to his victims, some of whom 
went to hell on account of his deed, if he went straight to heaven 
when he died? If it is said that he would have to suffer in purga- 
tory, anyway, for his sins, then what becomes of the doctrine that 
plenary indulgences remit the "whole debt" due to sins already for- 
given? There seems to be a little discrepancy here, is there not? 
But, then, I suppose it is only a little more "verbiage." It may be 
seen, then, that Indulgences, if there was anything to them, would be 
an injustice to many, even though the wronged did not destroy them- 
selves. Supposing that through this bank wrecker's act many, who 
might have lived in comfort in old age, are obliged to suffer and work 
for the necessities of life, while he lives in luxury, until overtaken by 
sickness, he becomes repentant, would make restitution if he could, 
but cannot, as he no longer has the means to do it, and many have 
gone to where he does not know, even if he wanted to ask pardon and 
make restitution, he confesses, receives Communion, and gains a plen- 
ary Indulgence, would this enable him to go straight to heaven, if 
plenary Indulgences remit the "whole debt" due to forgiven sins? 
Would that be justice to his victims? Has justice no recompense for 
the innocent sufferers? It may be seen, then, that Indulgences can 
not be just, and what is not just is an error. Therefore, with Indul- 
gences as only another species of error, what becomes of Purgatory? 
This is what becomes of it, and this is where the Catholics are nearer 
right than are the Protestants, with their denial of an intermediate 
state, it is a place from which there is no escape until the last farthing 
of suffering and wrong we have done others is paid. The place where 
the converted and repentant bank wreckers and others, who have 
caused others suffering, are punished, not according to the way the 
Church teaches, but measure for measure, even though they do con- 
fess and receive Communion, or accept salvation by faith in Jesus 
Christ, by "coming to Jesus" at the mourners' bench. Now, you 
Protestants, who have been denying Purgatory, do you see the justice 
of an intermediate state, to which the Catholic Church, in 1254, 
authoritively gave the name of Purgatory? Now, that we have a 
Purgatory, is it right to pray for the release of those in it before they 



175 

have suffered "measure for measure" for all the sufferings they have 
caused others? No; for it would make God a being who could be 
"influenced" from doing justice to the innocent sufferers, besides, it 
would be an act which would seek to frustrate the justice due innocent 
sufferers. * 

Is there anything unjust, unreasonable, or blasphemous in the 
view of a Purgatory such as I have outlined? Do you suijjjose God 
would be just if He released from Purgatory, on being petitioned to 
do so, the man who burns out the eyes of another and then burns at 
the stake by slow torture the victim, although the victim is guilty of 
a henious crime? "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay." 
That does not mean the vengeance of God, but the vengeance of the 
people, which they would wreak on others who have wronged them. 
Therein is it, that God is just to His creatures, that He will repay 
every wrong we do to one another, and for which we have not asked 
pardon and made restitution. Is there anything God dishonoring, or 
unjust in that? With the doctrines of the Indulgences and of Pur- 
gatory reasonably explained as errors, according to the teachings of 
the Church, yet the latter a fact, according to my analysis, and reason- 
ing, what is there now as a barrier to a union of all Trinitarian Chris- 
tians? Only one more barrier, that of the infallibility of the Pope, a 
doctrine that ought to be apparent to any unbiased, unprejudiced and 
fair-minded person, now, as an error. However, I will give it a little 
time and space in order to show its weak points. That, then, will be 
our next subject. 



CHAPTEK VII. 



INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. 

I will open this chapter by giving you the definition of the doc- 
trine of Infallibility. It means that "the Pope, as successor of St. Peter, 
Prince of the Apostles, by virtue of the promises of Jesus Christ, is 
preserved from error of judgment when he promulgates to the Church 
a decision on faith or morals." 31:149. It is strange that He "who 
is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before 
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy in the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ," ( Jude 24,) did not "preserve" from sin and "pre- 
sent spotless" the "five or six Popes with immorality" (31 :147) charged, 
if He preserved them and other Popes from error. Is it not strange? 
Did those "five or six Popes" who were immoral, pray in their immor- 
ality to be preserved from "error of judgment" in matters of faith and 
morals, and their prayers were answered in that, yet if they had prayed 
for the realization of Jude 24 their prayers would not be answered 
because of the corruptness of their hearts? Did Grod choose such 
men to be His Vicars, or is the selection of a Vicar so much like a 
political affair, that the one who has the best "pull" lands the coveted 
prize? According to this it looks very much as though it were the 
latter: "In the latter half of the fourth century, the streets of Rome 
ran with blood in the contest of Damasus and Ursicinus for the bish- 
opric of Rome; both factions arrayed against each other the priests 
and the people who were their respective partisans." 87:266. And it 
appears that Damasus won, for he was Pope between the years 366 
and 384, which would make it in the latter half of the fourth century. 
According to this does it appear that God chose His Vicars: "In the 
commencement of the seventh century, the Emperor Phocas conferred 
upon Boniface III., bishop of Rome, the title of ecumenical, or uni- 
versal bishop. This title had been usurped by the bishop of Con- 
stantinople, but it was now in this public manner taken from him and 
conferred upon the bishop of Rome; and this, too, by one of the most 
odius tyrants that ever lived." 90:224. Also this: "The French king 
[Philip, the Fair,] was determined that the papacy should be purified 
and reformed; that it should no longer be the appanoge of a few 



177 

Italian families, who were dexterously transmuting the credulity of 
Europe into coin — that French influence should prevail in it. He, 
therefore came to an understanding with the Cardinals; a French 
archbishop was elevated to the pontificate; he took the name of Clem- 
ent V. The Papal Court was removed to Avignon, in France, and 
Kome was abandoned as the metropol of Christianity." 68:290. That 
is why Clement V., in the list of the Popes, has ("removed to Avig- 
non") (30:64) after his name. It was not Grod who chose and placed 
him in Avignon, but the French King. 

In 1414 the Council of Constance was "called primarily to sit in 
judgment on the claims of the three rival Popes," (85:454, Vol. 2,) 
[John XXIII. , Gregory XII., and Benedict XIII.] and it seems that 
John XXIII. and Gregory XII. lost in that Council, for after their 
names, in the list of Popes, is this "(resigned 1415)" and "(resigned 

.)" (30:65,) respectively. It may be seen, then, that God had 

nothing to do with the appointing or choosing of the Popes, and if 
He had nothing to do with the appointing or choosing of them. He 
certainly would not preserve them from error any more so than He 
would any one else who prayed to be preserved from error, and who 
prayed to know the truth. God is no respecter of persons, and every 
one who doeth His will is acceptable to Him be he a Pope, Bishop 
Priest, or layman, and He will preserve the one from error as much as 
the other. Have we not an instance in Leo XIII., that he was no 
more preserved from error after he became Pope, because he said: 
"Christ is not put on except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic 
table," and in his encyclicals recommending increased devotion to the 
Rosary, than he was before he became Pope when he wrote his book 
"On the Most Sacred Blood of Mary. Essay showing why we should 
have a festival for the same," and which was placed on the "Index" 
because part of it was considered unorthodox? Do you believe then 
that because a Council, of admittedly fallible Cardinals and Bishops 
votes one of its members infallible makes him so? Dr. Dowie gives 
an illustration which shows the absurdity of a number of fallibles vot- 
ing one of their number infallible. He says: Suppose a female 
assembly are met to confer the greatest honor possible upon the lady 
president; and that some one present makes the astounding proposal 
that she should be declared to he a male man! Do you think * * * 
that, even if they were all unanimous, the vote of ten thousand women 
could make her, or anyone, a male man? No; and if thousands of 



178 

women could not by their votes make one man, * * * then neither 
can six hundred fallible bishops make, or decree, another bishop to be 
an Infallible Pope, * * * for it were as easy, and as reasonable, 
to do the one as the other." 91:25. He is about right, is he not? 
"In the Old Law, the High-Priest appointed by Almight God, filled 
an office analogous to that of the Pope in the New Law. In the Jew- 
ish Church, there were priests and levites ordained to minister at the 
altar; and there was, also, a supreme ecclesiastical tribunal; and in 
the last resort, the High-Priest, whose decision was enforced under 
pain of death. * * * We must, theeefore, find in the Church of 
Christ a spiritual judge, exercising the same sujjreme authority as the 
High-Priest wielded in the Old Law. For, if a supreme Pontiff was 
necessary, in the Mosaic dispensation, to maintain jjurity and uni- 
formity of worship, the same dignitary is equally necessary now to 
preserve unity of faith." 31:118, 119. Were the High-Priests '"ap- 
pointed by Almighty Grod?" Was Caiphas, the High-Priest, who said 
in the assembly, "He hath blasphemed, what further need have we 
of witnesses," (Matt. 26:65,) appointed to that office by Almighty 
Grod, and if so, why did He not preserve him from error in interpret- 
ing the Scriptures that he might see from Scripture that Jesus was 
the promised Messiah, as He does the Popes, if He appoints the Popes 
and preserves them from error? Is not the very argument used by 
the Church to support her claim to the Infallibility of the Popes in 
reality a fatal one against it? If Grod appointed and preserved the 
High-Priest from error in the interpretation of Scripture, did He at 
the supreme moment permit the High-Priest to err so that he could 
not interpret the Scripture correctly and see that Jesus, whom he 
delivered to be crucified because "He hath blasphemed," was in reality 
the promised Messiah? Does any one for a moment suppose that if 
the Hio'h-Priest had been preserved from error, and would have seen 
by the Sctipture that Jesus was the promised Messiah he would have 
said of Him, "He hath blasphemed"? Hardly. How then will the 
Church get around that difficulty, that God appointed and preserved 
from error the High-Priest, just as he does the Pope, yet let the High- 
Priest err at the supreme moment where he should have been jjre- 
served from error, and thus have prevented the crucifixion of His 
beloved Son? And if God never preserved from error the High-Priest 
how then could his decisions be justly "enforced under pain of 
death?" And if he did preserve the High -Priest from error, how is it 



179 

that he erred at the supreme moment and said Jesus was a blasphemer 
and "whose decision was enforced under pain of death" — of Jesus, — 
instead of seeing that Jesus was the promised Messiah? When the 
CJhurch can answer that satisfactorily, then we will be ready to believe 
that the Pope is preserved from error more than you or I am pre- 
served from error. 

If the Popes are preserved from error then why did the Sixth 
Ecumenical Council, over forty years after his death, condemn Pope 
Honorius "as a heretic?" 92:135. The answer made is that "these 
letters [In which Honorius "declared his entire concurrence with 
Sergin's opinion, concerning our Lord's Person which afterwards the 
Sixth Council pronounced heresy." 92:135,] of Honorius on their 
very face are nothing more than portions of a discussion with a view 
to some final decision." 92:136. 

Why does a Pope have to have with a bishop "a discussion with 
a view to some final decision," if the Holy Spirit guides and preserves 
him from error? Why did he not get into St. Peter's Chair,— which 
seems to be "supernaturally" endowed with Infallibility, and all that 
is required to make one Infallible is to sit in it, — and there come to 
"some final decision," instead of discussing the question with a falli- 
ble bishop? 

The following proves my statement that St. Peter's Chair seems 
to be "supernaturally" endowed with Infallibility. "Billuart speaking 
of the Pope says : 'Neither in conversation, nor in discussion, nor in 
interpreting Scripture or the Fathers, nor in consulting, nor in giving 
his reasons for the point which he has defined, nor in answering let- 
ters, nor in private deliberations, supposing he is setting forth his own 
opinion, is the Pope Infallible.' And for this simple reason, because 
on these various occasions of speaking his mind, he is not in the 
chair of the universal doctor." 92:144. So, I suppose, if one should 
comer Leo XIII., and jjrove, with the "arms of the intellect," that 
his saying of, "Christ is not put on except by the frequentation of the 
Eucharistic table," and his encyclical, of October, 1883, on the devo- 
tion of the Holy Rosary, in which he "enjoined that during the 
month of October the Rosary * * * should be recited daily in 
aU churches and chapels," (53: Oct. 9, 1901,) are errors, he could take 
refuge in an excuse by saying, "I was not at the time, when I issued 
those words and the encyclical on the Rosary, 'in the chair of the uni- 
versal doctor,' but they were issued between draughts of French 



180 

champagne and bites of macoroni and cheese, and were, therefore, only 
'setting forth my own opinion' which is not to be taken as being In- 
fallible." That would be a nice "how-d'-you-do" if he did that, would 
it not? Yet such an avenue of escape is open to him according to the 
quotations I gave already. -- 

Believing I have satisfied any unbiased and unprejudiced mind 
that the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Pope is but another error, 
I will not waste any more time and space to the subject, although I 
have much more material which I could use against such a doctrine. 
I am beginning to see that the work under way, to bring about a 
union of the Churches, will be much more volumnious than I had 
any idea it would be. After one more chapter, in which I will at- 
tempt to show that the Catholic Church is not more Apostolic than 
are some of the Protestant Churches, I will still have subjects — that 
will concern religion, science, philosophy, and infidelity — that will 
require considerable time and space to completely undermine them. 
Those subjects are the Trinity, Deity of Jesus Christ, Original Sin, 
Resurrection, the Devil, the Bible, Christian Science, the Origin of 
Man, or his development from a lower animal, Evolution, etc. There- 
fore from now on when I believe I have completely undermined a 
proposition I will not devote too much unnecessary time and space to 
it after the task has been accomplished. We will, then, leave the 
theme under discussion and proceed with the next one. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



THE CATHOLIC CHURCH NO MORE APOSTOLIC THAN THE 
PROTESTANT CHURCH IS. 

The caption at the head of this chapter, no doubt, will cause a 
smile to the Catholic reader, but, probably, by the time we are through 
with this chapter the reader may have one's eyes opened and will then 
not smile so freely in one's fancied security of freedom from error in 
one's belief. When. I say that the Catholic Church is no more Apos- 
tolic than the Protestant Chiirch, I do not mean that she cannot trace 
back in an unbroken line to the Apostles her succession. I admit 
that she has the credentials that will show that she is in legal posses- 
sion of Apostolic succession. But that is not the question. The 
question is. Does the Catholic Church teach only that which was 
taught by Christ and the Apostles? That is the question. I will 
show from her own writings that she teaches much that dates many 
years after the time of the Apostles sojourn on this earth, which can 
not, therefore, possibly be Apostolic. "If anything is promulgated or 
definitely decreed by the Church as being part of the faith, the mean- 
ing is that this was a thing which the Apostles themselves believed 
and preached." 45:59. "She is Apostolic, for she accepts no doctrine 
which does not come from the Apostles." 5:348. Let us see, now, 
how much truth there is in that. "Who instituted this festival [Cor- 
pus Christi]? Pope Urban IV." [Who was Pope from 1261 to 1264?] 
"In 1317, Pope John XXII. instituted the solemn procession," (5:414- 
415,) of Corpus Christi. Any one, then, who lived prior to 1261 knew 
nothing of Corpus Christi and its procession, of which I have already 
made mention, where a wafer is carried in a monstrance under a 
canopy as being God, and the faithful falling on their knees when it 
passes by them in procession. How true that is, that she "accepts no 
doctrine which does not come from the Apostles, for you see the 
Apostles were longer lived than Mathusla, and they "believed and 
preached" Corpus Christi and its procession before they died. 

The Church also says: "All revelation came from God alone 
through His inspired ministers, and it was complete at the beginning 
of the Church." 31:149. Let us, now, see how "complete at the 



182 

beginning of the Church" revelation was. "In the year 1675, whilst 
she [Margaret Mary] was one day in prayer before the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, our Lord appeared to her, and pointing to His Heart which He 
showed to her, surrounded with flames, surmounted by the cross, 
encircled with a crown of thorns, and pierced with a gaping wound. 
He said to her: 'Behold this heart which has loved mankind so much, 
and which receives only ingratitude and coldness in return for its 
love. My desire is that you should make reparation to my heart for 
this ingratitude, and induce others also to make reparation.' * * * 
In several subsequent apparitions our divine Lord repeated this injunc- 
tion, and made the most unbounded promises in favor of all who 
would apply themselves to this office of reparation to His Sacred 
Heart. The following are some of His promises; * * * 3. I will 
console them in all their pains and trials. [This looks like an attempt 
to rob the Blessed Virgin of the honor of comforting us. "If we only 
call upon Her sincerely and confidently in all our griefs and tempta- 
tions She will surely show Herself a mother, a comforter and a 
refuge" 53: May 14, 1902.] * * * 10. I will give to priests the 
gift of moving the hardest hearts. [This explains why they no longer 
need "illiterate lay-brothers on the steps of the pulpits to say Hail 
Marys" (11:126) for the success of sermons, and this is also the reason, 
there are so many conversions to the Church besides those who be- 
come Catholics to marry a Catholic] 11. Persons who propogate this 
devotion, shall have their names inscribed on my heart, never to be 
effaced from it. [Think of the size of a heart on which millions of 
names can be "inscribed * * * never to be efPaced from it!" Yet 
this great big heart is in a body each communicant is to wholly "feed 
upon" 49:217] * * * Pope Clement XIII., after causing the strict- 
est investigation to be made, [and keeping in mind Gal. 1:8] com- 
manded the Festival of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to be observed 
throughout the Catholic Church on the first Friday after the octave 
of Corpus Christi." 5:428-429. 

Here is another of the promises, which is not in the book just 
qiioted from. "12. I will grant the grace of final penitence to those 
who communicate on the first Friday of nine consecutive months." 
53: Nov. 18, 1901. Not taking into consideration the other eleven 
promises, is not the latter one of enough importance to salvation that 
it should have been taught by the Apostles? Could not Jesus have 
told the Apostles to preach the doctrine that He would "grant the 



183 

grace of final penitence to those who communicate on the first Friday 
of nine consecutive months," if there were any truth in these visions 
of Margaret Mary and the promises Jesus made to her? Does this 
look like "all revelation was complete in the beginning of the Church?" 
Are the scales still covering your eyes so that you cannot see these 

(well, name it yourself) of the Church? If we are to accept 

these "apparitions" as revelations of truth, then, what need was there 
for Jesus coming to the world and teaching us incomplete revelation, 
if He is going to give us new revelations, from time to time, through 
these "apparitions" of so-called Saints, who, if they lived nowadays, 
would, probably, give the probate judge something to do to earn his 
salary? "St. Jerome retired into the depths of a great wilderness. 
There his countenance was bathed in tears every day. The desert 
re-echoed with his sobs and sighs. He took a stone in his hand and 
struck his breast with it until his breast began to bleed. What made 
him do all this? His great fear of hell." 7:229. That comes pretty 
near being a case for the probate judge, does it not? a. f. y. 

"The Festival of the Scapular, or the Feast in Commemoration of 
the Blessed Virgin of Mt. Carmel, * * * comes from the legend 
[not of the Apostles] that in the beginning of the thirteenth century 
the sixth general of the Carmelite Order, Simon Stock, received the 
scapular ["which consists of two small pieces of cloth with pictures 
of the Blessed Virgin upon them, which are blessed, and worn over 
the shoulders, (under all clothing) hanging upon the breast and back"] 
from the Blessed Virgin, which would be to him and to all who car- 
ried it, a badge of Her special protection, [at the rate of over 46,000 
simultaneously] and that Mary afterwards appeared to Pope John 
XXII. and advised him [the Apostles did not, nor did God] to give 
more indulgences to this Order than he had already granted in 1322. 
5:799. Here, we may see, were more "apparitions," and a materialized 
spirit, Mary, [had this appeared to a Spiritualist, the Church would 
have said that, "that was the devil, for 'it is an old trick of evil Spirits 
to pretend to be the Lord, or some god, or saint' " 12:253] appearing 
to the Pope advising "him to give more indulgences." Is that Apos- 
tolic? Is the voice in this case the "voice of God?" a* f. y. 

We will now see the blessings one receives in wearing Scapulars, 
of which a person may wear four different kinds at one and the same 
time. One may receive "Four Plenary Indulgences at the liour of 
death, provided they receive the sacraments," (71:131,) which means 



184 

four remissions of the "whole debt." How is it with you? Of course, 
"these Indulgences are applicable, by way of suffrage, to the souls in 
Purgatory." 71:131. There are so many ways of gaining plenary 
Indulgences, applicable to the souis in Purgatory, that if there were 
any truth in their efficacy, there would be so many advance pardons 
of remissions of the "whole debt" for those started towards Purgatory 
that they would never need to get into Purgatory, and that really 
Purgatory might be closed up with this sign on its doors: "Closed, 
for want of souls 'whom the Lord loves tenderly,' and 'beloved spouses 
of Christ' for the 'demons to touch and harass.' " 

I suppose you never heard or read of a convent burning to the 
ground? Well, here is the reason why: "A fire broke out [In 1656] 
in a house about ten o'clock at night, and raged with such violence 
that a great number of inhabitants [Of the town] collected on the 
spot to give all the help they could under the circumstances. Among 
the crowd was a worthy clergyman, who (recollecting that at Peri- 
guenx, about twenty years before, a great fire had been miraculously 
extinguished by a Scapular, which event had been inquired into, and 
attested by the magistrate of the town.) desired a young man, remark- 
able for his faith and piety, and who happened to be on the spot, to 
take off his Scapular, and to throw it into the midst of the flames, 
'and you will find,' he added, 'that they will soon be extinguished 
through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.' ["Who had already 
over 46,000 ijetitions coming to her at one and the same time every 
second of time from one end of the year to the other.] The young 
man hastened to obey, and making his way through the crowd, threw 
his Scapular into that part of the fire where it was raging most violent- 
ly. At the same moment the flames seemed to ascend like a whirlwind, 
and the fire ceased burning. The Scapular was found intact on the 
following day, in the midst of the burnt remains of the house." 71: 
121, 122. So, after this, should you read of a convent or any other 
Catholic institution having burnt down to the ground, do not believe 
it, but do like the Christian Scientist and say, "I do not believe what 
I am reading on account of the 'deceitfulness of the senses,' for surely 
there was someone there 'remarkable for faith and piety' who had on 
a Scapular and who would have taken it off and thrown it in the fire, 
in which case the flames would have ascended 'like a whirlwind, and 
the fire ceased burning.' " 

"What is the Rusary? It is a very useful and easy form of 



185 

prayer, mental as well as vocal, which was introduced by St. Dominic 
[N. B. Not by the Apostles] in the thirteenth century, was approved 
by the Church, and has, since then, always been practiced and recom- 
mended by her." 30:322. "The Rosary is one of the most beautiful, 
["Vain repetitions," (Matt. 6:7,) principally of fifty-three Hail 
M.Bsys'] most profitable, and most popular of all devotions. It was 
revealed to St. Dominic by the Divine Mother herself, [Another God 
gone into the "revelation" business] about the beginning of the thir- 
teenth century." 48:470. Is the Rosary '"a thing which the Apostles 
themselves believed and preached," when it was "introduced by St. 
Dominic in the thirteenth century?" Did "all revelation" come "from 
God alone," when the Rosary "was revealed to St. Dominic by the 
Divine Mother herself?" Does the Church accejDt "no doctrine which 
does not come from the Apostles," when she introduces, in the thir- 
teenth century, into the Church "one of the most profitable" things 
for man's salvation ? It looks like Jesus did not near perform His 
duty, while on earth, if He neglected to provide all the means necessary 
for obtaining salvation, if "most profitable" things, after His coming 
and going, have to be "introduced in the thirteenth century" by the 
revelations of others than He. Is it, or is it not so? a. f. y. 

"Some ninety years ago or more, a little child knelt down, one 
lovely evening in the month of May out in the open streets of Rome, 
before an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and began to say aloud 
the Litany of Loveto. Next evening he was joined by another little 
boy and they sang together the Litany they had heard chanted in the 
Church. It was but a childish fancy as it seemed, the passing im- 
pulse of the moment. The evening following the two children sang 
their Litany again, and a boy passing stopped to listen and joined 
them. Several children assembled for the singing on the evening 
after, then their mothers came and knelt along with them, and quite a 
little choir sang the praises of Our Lady in the Roman street. At 
length a priest of the neighborhood invited them to come into his 
church, and he lit a few candles on the Blessed Virgin's altar, and 
they sang their Litany clustered around her statue in the calm religious 
twilight of that beautiful May evening. That was the beginning of 
the May devotions, the first inauguration — so simple and so homely — 
of what has come to be, under the sanction and approval of the Church, 
a world-wide expression of intense devotion to Our Lady." 53: May 
9, 1900. In a previous chapter I gave an account of the closing- 



186 

exercises of the May devotions, where there was a procession in the 
Church, in which was carried a statue of the Blessed Virgin, and the 
children singing "Sancta Maria, Ora pro nobis." Are the, nightly of 
the month, May devotions, with its procession on the closing night, 
things "which the Apostles themselves believed and preached," when 
"some ninety years ago or more * * * was the beginning of the 
May devotions?" If not, — and this is a certainty from her own writ- 
ings — then, when the Church says she "accepts no doctrine which 
does not come from the Apostles," and "that if anything is promul- 
gated by the Church as being part of the faith, the meaning is that 
this was a thing which the Apostles themselves believed and preached," 
does she make a wilful misrepresentation of facts, or what does she 
mean by making such statements? Does she believe that her "wis- 
dom and learning of eighteen hundred years" will shield her against 
the discernments or the "presumptuous ignorance" of any one? If 
she does, then, has she or has she not made a miscalculation' for onoe 
anyway, a. f. y. 

"It is related that, towards the close of the thirteenth century, an 
old man from Bologna, aged 107 years, [Christian Science surely had 
nothing to do with his longevity, had it?] was brought before Pope 
Boniface VIII., who declared to the Pontiff that his deceased father 
had advised him to go to Rome in the year 1300, because in that year, 
as in the year 1200, a great Plenary Indulgence was to be obtained 
there. Tradition adds that two old Frenchmen of Beauvais, gave 
similar testimony, and that, in consequence of such testimonies and 
on beholding the pilgrims that thronged to Rome during 1300, Boni- 
face VIII., after having taken the advice of the Cardinals, [Not the 
advice of the Holy Spirit, or of the Word of God] issued the first 
known Bull of the Grand Jubilee at Rome. * * * Towards the 
seventeenth century the Sovereign Pontiffs extended the benefit of 
the Jubilee beyond the city of Rome, and, today, exists in the Church 
the traditional custom of extending the Jubilee of the Holy Year, 
[As though all years were not Holy] for a few months, to the entire 
world, after its closing in Rome." 93:13, 14. Well, we had the 
"Jubilee of the Holy Year" , in 1901. That phase of it to which I 
wish to call attention is the one of visits to different Churches, called 
"Processional" visits. These processions, of which there are usually 
three where there are but two churches in a town, are made by the 
congregation, entire if possible, on three successive Sundays. 

After an early Mass, the congregation forms in line, the boys in 



187 

one division, the girls, the yonng men. the yonng women, the married 
men, and the married women in other divisions. This procession is 
headed by the parish priests who lead the procession to another 
church to make a visit. In the instance which I have in mind, the 
church so visited is at least twenty-one blocks distance from the 
church from which the procession started. This distance is made on 
foot to and fro, and I know there were in the procession old, weak and 
decrepit persons, who lived over ten blocks from the church from 
which the procession started, who had to walk to church in the first 
place, because the street cars did nor run that early on Sunday morn- 
ing so they could ride to the church, who covered the entire distance, 
which- would make a walk for them of over fifty blocks, if they rode 
home from the church after returning to it and making a visit in it, 
for by that time the cars were running. Well, the procession passed 
the house where I lived, more than once, and when they passed I 
stood and watched them marching by. While it was passing by I 
heard the Rosary being recited, and some of the marchers looked like 
they were ready to collapse at any time. When I beheld this sight 
and heard them reciting the Rosary my heart went out in pity to the 
blind, credulous, and unthinking faithful, that I exclaimed to myself: 
"0 God, enable me one day to smash, with the 'arms of the intellect,' 
this species of error, blindness, and superstition ! " 

Does any one now, who has read this book to here, believe any 
longer that such a religious observance with the recitation of the 
Rosary — which, as I have already proved mathematically, and mathe- 
matics is from God, that it is utterly impossible for the Blessed Virgin 
to hear — is a thing so pleasing to God that on account of it He "scat- 
ters His choicest blessings?"' 93:37. Do you remember how in 1901 
God scattered "His choicest blessings?" You families where, on 
account of the extreme heat of 1901, there is now a vacant chair in 
your homes, how did you enjoy "His choicest blessings," which He 
scattered on account of the "Grand Jiabilee?" Why, they were even 
trying to hold the "Beef Trust" responsible for one of "His choicest 
blessings." If I wanted to be real bigoted and prejudiced, — like some 
of the Protestants are, who can see a Providential design in it, when 
a first rate nation, that is non-Catholic, jumps onto and whips a 
seventh rate nation that is supposedly Catholic, — I could say that God 
was so displeased with such religious observances that, to show His 
disapproval of it, He sent the ever to be remembered drouth of 1901 



188 

in the section of the country where He by special providence — as He 
had St. John at the Cross to hear the words "Son, behold thy mother," 
which was to mean that we should pray to Her at the rate of over 
46,000 petitions each second of time — had me sp situated that I could 
"Behold, this idolatry and superstition that is displeasing to Me, and 
go smash it with the 'arms of the intellect' which I have given you." 

I suppose it is soon becoming apparent to you that the Catholic 
Church is no more Apostolic than is the Protestant Church. Well, 
I will give you some more of the Church's rites and ceremonies, and, 
having done so, will let you a. f . y. whether or not the Catholic Church 
is not in reality much of a "human creation," the epithet which she 
so freely likes to apply to non-Catholic Churces. 

In a book entitled "The Complete Office of Holy Week," in which 
the "whole liturgy of the Church for Holy Week has been collected," 
(69:10,) are given the ceremonies used in connection with the blessing 
of difPerent articles which the Church uses in her religious worship. 
The blessing of the new fire will be the first that I will tell how it was 
done. "At a convenient hour, the altars are dressed; but the candles 
are not lighted till the beginning of Mass. Then, without the church, 
fire is struck from a flint, and coals are lighted with it; after which 
the priest (attended by the Ministers with the cross, holy water, and 
incense, before the church gate, if it can be conveniently done, other- 
wise in the very entrance of the church, blesses the new fire, saying: 
[In Latin, but I will give the English translation as given alongside 
of it.] The Lord be with you. R. And with thy spirit. Let us 
pray. O God! who by Thy Son, the corner-stone, hast bestowed on 
the faithful the fire of Thy brightness; sanctify this new fire [not our 
hearts] produced from a flint [if Grod was not told that, he might labor 
under the imi)ression that it was 'produced from a parlor match'] for 
our use." 69:420, In blessing the Paschal Candle the following 
prayers are made use: "Therefore, on this sacred night, receive, O 
Holy Father! the evening sacrifice of this incense, which Thy holy 
Church, by the hands of her ministers, presents to Thee in this solemn 
oblation of this wax candle, made out of the labor of bees. [If God 
was not told that He might think it was 'made out of the labor of the 
employees of the Standard Oil Company.] And now we know the 
excellence of this pillar, which the sparkling fire lights for the honor 
of God. ('Here the Deacon lights the candle with one of the three 
candles on the rod.') Which fire, though now divided, suffers no loss 



189 

from the communication of its light. Because it is fed by the melted 
wax, [if Grod were not told that, He might think it 'is fed by' home 
made tallow, 'produced by the' old cow that died of Texas fever] pro- 
duced by the bee, to make this taper," 69:428-429. In blessing Holy 
Water "He breathes thrice upon the water in the form of a cross, 
saying: Do thou with thy mouth bless these clear waters; that be- 
sides their natural virtue of cleansing the body, [when you get an 
Aspergill full of it on your new Easter gown and hat] they may also 
be effectual for purifying the soul. ( 'Here the priest sinks the Paschal- 
candle into the water three different times, saying each time:') May 
the virtue of the Holy Grhost descend into all the water of this font. 
[Instead of into our hearts.] ("Then breathing thrice upon the water, 
he goes on:") And make the whole substance of this water fruitful 
and capable of regenerating. [When I get to the chapter on Original 
Sin and Baptism, I will attempt to prove to you that an ablution of 
the body for the purpose of "regenerating" one, is just as great an 
error as the putting on of Christ is not effected "except by the fre- 
quentation of the Eucharistic table."] * * * ("Then he mingles 
the oil with the water, and with his hands spreads it all over the font. 
If there are any to be baptized, they may be baptized after the usual 
manner. After the blessing of the font, he returns to the altar, where 
he and his ministers lie prostrate before it, [When so-called heathens 
prostrate themselves before man-form images of brass and stone and 
worship them as gods, it is idolatry, but when priests prostrate them- 
selves before a wafer God, that is not adolatry. Oh, no,] and all the 
rest kneel, whilst the Litany [of the Saints, which I have already 
proven mathematically, that it is impossible for them to hear the many 
petitions addressed to them] is sung by two chanters in the middle of 
the choir, both sides repeating the same.") 69:489-491. We now 
come to the "Bessing of the Holy Oils on Thursday in Holy Week, 
[which is the week before Easter Sunday.] From the Roman Pon- 
tifical. On this day every year takes place the blessing of the Oil of 
Catechumens, and the Oil of Unction for the sick, and the Holy 
Chrism is made." 69:542. Also the "eye-salve" of Apoc. 3:18, which, 
when blind eyes are anointed with it they can then see, just as Bap- 
tism washes away Original Sin, and Extreme Unction makes the "Lord 
raise up" the sick who are annointed with the "Oil of Unction" in 
obedience to the injunction of James 5:14-15 where it says: "Is any 
man sick unto death, given up by the doctors to die, among you? Let 



190 

him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, 
anointing him with oil [Extreme Unction] in the name of the Lord. 
And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man : and the Lord shall 
raise him up if it is God's Will." Now, that is the way it should read 
if the Church were to follow the injunction of James 5:14-15. 

The first year I came home, here, I had apparently, — so it seemed 
to my people — a sinking sjjell and they thought I was going to die. 
It was in the evening about 5 o'clock, and they sent for the priest to 
prepare me for death, as though each one was not to do that one's self 
— although James 5:15 says that "the Lord shall raise him up" to live 
— by administering to me the "last sad rites" of the Church, which 
consists of a Confession, a Communion, Extreme Unction and a plen- 
ary Indulgence, which "is the remission of the whole debt" "of that 
temporal punishment which, even after the sin is forgiven, we have 
yet to undergo, either here or in Purgatory," which would enable me 
to go straight to heaven should I then die — although had I died under 
those conditions of being "well prepared," the Church would, if any 
one would pay them, accept "honorariums" of five dollars for a High 
Mass, one dollar for a Low Mass and "no money no Mass," for the 
repose of my soul for "thirty-five years" after my death, just as she does 
in instances to which I have already referred to in another chapter. 

Well, after I had made my Confession and received Communion, 
and was now ready for Extreme U^nction the priest felt of my pulse — 
and it must not have indicated that there was any immediate danger 
of me dying then — for he said to my people: "I will not give John 
Extreme Unction now% for I do not think he is going, to die, yet." 
Now, was that according to the injunction of James 4:5, which the 
Church, in a foot note in her Bible says: "See here a plain warrant 
of Scripture for the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, that any contro- 
versy against its institution would be against the express words of the 
sacred text in the plainest terms?" 

Do you wonder now that I have no respect for the Catholic 
Church, as a Divine institution, when she is so inconsistent and con- 
tradictory in her practices'? It does not say, "Is any man sick unto 
death among you," does it? Yet she said, when I was bed-ridden 
with sickness, "I will not give John Extreme Unction now, for I do 
not think he is going to die, yet." 

"Who can and ought to receive Extreme Unction? Every Catho- 
lic who has come to the use of reason, and is in danger of death by 



191 

sickness." 30:296. According to this, should not James 5:14 read, 
"Is any man sick, 'and is in danger of death,' among you?" But it 
does not, does it? Therefore, the Church cannot be Apostolic when 
one is sick, and not in "danger of death," She says, "I will not give 
John Extreme Unction now, for I do not think he is going to die, 
yet." Can she be Apostolic then? a. f. y. 

"How does Extreme Unction act upon the body? It often relieves 
the pains of the sick person, and sometimes even restores his health, 
if recovery be useful for the salvation of his soul. * * * How 
should we receive Extreme Unction? * * * 2. With faith, hope, 
charity, and resignation to the loill of God.'''' 29:163. I have since 
the incident, mentioned, been given Extreme Unction twice, wnen it 
was believed I would die — in fact one of these times the doctor told 
my people I would not live two hours longer, when I had typhoid- 
pneumonia on top of my bed-ridden sickness, which I already had. 
before the attack of the fever — yet I did not die, and that was in 
December, 1899, for a paper on the 23d of December, 1899, said of me: 
"John Hunkey, who has been sick for about two years, is very low at 
the home of his parents, etc." Now, because I did not die then was it 
because my recovery was "useful for the salvation of my soul?" If I 
had died then, I would not quite have been the "regular heretic" that 
I am now, and furthermore, I would not have been able to have given 
you this book. Was my recovery due to the administration of Ex- 
treme Unction, in two instances, because it was "useful for the 
salvation of my soul," by becoming a pronounced and known "regular 
heretic," or was the recovery due to natural causes? For ope time I 
had no doctor when I was anointed, having had such a strong desire, 
at the time, to die, that when my people ask me if they should call in 
a doctor I said "No," for I was willing to die, because I had lost all 
hope and ambition to live and wanted to die, so as not to be any longer 
a sorrow and a possible burden to any one. When a person gets down 
that low in hope, with a broken heart, there is nothing a person 
wishes for so strongly as the end, yet in spite of it all I have lived to 
become hojjeful, cheerful — at least in appearance — and ambitious 
again, to become one of the world's immortals, by giving to the world 
this book, which I hope will accomplish my object of bringing about 
Christianity or the Union of Churches. Now did Extreme Unction 
have anything to do with my recovery, because it "was useful for the 
salvation of my soul" and of others, that I did not die when it was 



192 

twice thought that I would die, and was twice anointed for death, 
a. f . y. 

Why does not the Church bless eye-salve with which to anoint 
eyes of the blind that they may see? Revelation or Apostles 3:18 
would be as good "Scriptural warrant" for that as James 5:14 is 
"warrant of Scripture" for the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, or 
John 3 :5 is for a baptism of water, or John 6:54 is for putting on 
Christ "by frequentation of the Eucharistic table," or Luke 22:19 is 
for a daily commemoration by the Sacrifice of the Mass, or John 20:23 
is for auricular Confession? It is because there is nothing more to 
the "warrant of Scripture" for all those than there is "warrant of 
Scripture" for anointing eyes with "eye-salve" that they may see, but 
because the latter would put to test the powers claimed by the 
Chiirch she ignores it, and fastens on certain tests as "warrant of 
•Scripture" for performing other supposedly "supernatural" accom- 
plishments which are not to be verified by as direct evidence as would 
be the opening of the eyes . of the blind if anointed with the "eye- 
salve" of Apostles or Revelation 3:18. 

(Well, I have digressed so far from the real theme that I have 
almost lost trace of it.) "The Archdeacon presents it ["the Oil for 
the sick"] to the Bishop to be blessed, and placing it on the table. 
The Bishop rising, with his mitre, says in a low voice : I exorcise and 
adjure thee, O unclean spirit! and every assault and illusion of Satan, 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; to 
depart from this Oil, that it [instead of our hearts] may be made an 
Unction of grace to strengthen the Temple of the living God. * * * 
("Then putting off his mitre, he blesses the Oil, saying in the same 
tone: V. The Lord be with you. R. And with thy spirit. Let us 
pray. Send forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord! Thy Holy Ghost, the 
paraclete from heaven, upon this fatness of the olive, [Christ sent the 
paraclete on the heads of men. Apostles, not on inanimate matter — 
oil] which Thou has vouchsafed to bring forth out of a green tree 
[Sure, it was not a Kansas sunflower stalk?] for the strengthening and 
refreshing of soul and body. [I always supposed the Eucharist was 
the fountain that contained the living water that was "strengthening 
and refreshing of soul and body," yet here it is stated that it is in the 
"fatness of the- olive" brought "forth out of a green tree." Only a 
little more "verbiage," I suppose, which makes the faithful "admire" 
it.] ("After this, the Oil is carried back to the Sacristy, and kept 



195 

most carefully." 69:542-543-544. [To be rubbed on a ten day old 
baby when it is "regenerated," "born again," or when used in compli- 
ance of the "warrant of the Scripture" Jas. 5:14, when a "man is sick 
unto death," otherwise "I will not give John Extreme Unction now, 
for I do not think he is going to die yet.] 

Now comes the Consecration of the Holy Chrism. "Then- the 
Archdeacon, standing near the Bishop, says with a loud voice : 'Oleum 
ad sanctum Chrisma,' i. e., the Oil for the Holy Chrism. And after, 
in the same tone, he adds, 'Oleum Catechumenorum.' After which, a 
thurible being presented to the Bishop, he puts incense into it, and 
blesses it after the accustomed manner. Then the Priests, Deacons 
and Sub-deacons go in procession to the Sacristy to fetch with all 
solemnity the Oil of Chrism and the Oil of Catechumens, [Like the 
wafer God in a Corpus Christi or Forty Hour Devotion procession, 
already mentioned,] which are brought in, carried in the procession by 
two Deacons, preceded by a Sub-deacon, carrying a vessel of balsam, 
and followed by the Priests, Deacons, and Sub-deacons. * * * 
When all have reached their places in the Choir, the Deacon who 
carries the Oil of Chrism comes before the Bishop. * * * Then 
the Sub-deacon, carrying the vessel with balsam. * * * The Bishop 
then rises, puts off his mitre, and first blesses the balsam, saying: 

* * * O God, who art the author and giver of heavenly mysteries, 
[Such as we have in the Catholic Church,] and of all graces, we 
beseech Thee to hear our prayers: grant that these balmy tears of 
sapless wood ("which, exuding from a fruitful branch, make fat our 
souls with sacerdotal Unction") may be made acceptable to Thee in 
Thy sacraments. [You can now see what Catholic sacraments are.] 

* * * O Lord, the maker of all creatures! who by Thy servant 
Moses didst command, [ Which is just as true as that Christ com- 
manded the Catholic Church to perform all that she performs,] a 
mixture being made of sweet spices, the hallowing of annointing oil: 
we humbly beseech Thy clemency, that upon this oil, which the root 
of a tree hath yielded, Thou wouldst bestow the grace of Thy Spirit, 
and the fulness of consecration : [ Bestow grace of Spirit on oil, not 
on our hearts. This is not idolatry. Oh, no.] make it unto us, O Lord! 
a savor of faith and gladness, an everlasting Chrism of sacerdotal 
Unction; make it worthy of the sign of Thy heavenly banner; that 
whosoever being born again by holy Baptism shall have been anointed 
with this oil, may receive the fullest benediction, both of body and 



196 

soul, and may be everlastingly fulfilled with the blessed grace of faith, 
[To understand Catholic truths,] through our Lord, etc. * * * 
[From this it may be seen what Catholic Baptism consists of, "grease 
patches," as a certain writer calls anointing by "a papish priest," 
(94:90,) and a washing or sprinkling of Holy Water, yet the Church 
believes that her Baptisms are all right, but those of non-Catholics 
are "heretical." On Sunday, March 30, 1902, the priest made this 
announcement from the pulpit: "You have no doubt seen it an- 
nounced in the papers of the past few days, that there will be some 

sort of religious doings this afternoon at park, by some religious 

denomination. -It is expected that no Catholics will go to it as it is 
not allowed them to witness heretical ceremonies of any kind." "Weil, 
this "some some sort of religious doings" was a public baptizing. 
After the priest made this announcement, two non-Catholic ladies — 
who had seen the highly Apostolic "religious doings," which is no 
"heretical" ceremony or "mere spectacle" of the Abbot, with a master 
of ceremonies and about twelve supernumaries, each having a vest- 
ment for him, robing himself for ten or more minutes in church, in 
presence of the whole congregation, for it was Easter Sunday — got up 
and walked out, and I felt at the time that it was a deserved rebuke 
which they offered the priest for his remarks. They were pretty well 
up in the body of the church, too, so the priest could not help but 
notice them.] ("After which, the Bishop sits, with his mitre still on, 
and breathes thrice, in the form of a cross, over the Chrism. Then 
the twelve priests * * * each in turn breathes, as the Bishop had 
done, over the Chrism. * * * Which done, the Bishop, * * * 
pronounces at once the Exorcism of the Chrism, saying: I exorcise 
thee, O creature of oil! [According to this the Catholic Devil is as 
omnipresent as God Himself, and even inheres in inanimate matter, 
"Great God!" how thankful I ought to be for having had the scales 
taken from my eyes, by suffering, so that I may now see clearly and 
plainly the blind, idolatrous, superstitious, blasphemous, God slander- 
ing, God calumniating errors of the Catholic Church ! ! ] by God the 
Father Almighty, * * * that all the power of the enemy, all the 
host of Satan, and all the wiles and illusions of the devil may be 
expelled and vanish from thee; that thou mayest be, to all who shall 
be annointed with thee, for their adoption as sons through the Holy 
Ghost. ("The Deacon then removes the veil which hitherto covered 
the vessel, and the Bishop, bowing his head, salutes the Chrism, 



197 

Baying: Hail! Holy Chrism. ("This he does a second and a third time, 
saying it louder each time: and after saying it a third time, he kisses 
[A "Shrewsbury clock" kind, no doubt,] the lip of the vessel. After- 
wards the twelve Priests in order make the same salutation, thrice 
repeating: Hail! Holy Chrism, ("And having kissed the lip of the 
vessel, return to their places. Presently the Deacon approaches with 
the other vessel, containing the Oil of Catechumens, which he pre- 
sents to the Arch -deacon who places it on the table before the Bishop. 
The Bishop and the twelve Priests breathe over it, as before was done 
in the case of the vessel of Chrism. Which done, the Bishoja * * * 
at once pronounces in a low tone the Exorcism of the Oil of Catechu- 
mens, saying: I exorcise thee, O creature of oil! in the name of Grod 
the Father Almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ, and of the 
Holy Ghost, that by this invocation * * * all the most wicked 
powers of the enemy, all the inveterate malice of the devil, every 
violent assault, every hidden and dark illusion may be rooted out, and 
chased away, and dispelled from thee; [What a great to do over noth- 
ing but error;] that thou mayest be hallowed to the use of holy sacra, 
ments for the adof)tion both of flesh and spirit to those who shall be 
anointed with thee, for the forgiveness of all sins * * * "Then 
the Bishof) and the twelve Priests, in order, reverently salute the Oil 
of Catechumens, saying thrice: Hail! Holy Oil. And when they 
have done this the third time, they kiss the mouth of the vessel, as 
before was directed for the Chrism. After this, the two vessels are 
carried by the two Deacons back to the Sacristy, in the same [solemn | 
form and order as they were brought in j^rocession, the two cantors 
chanting the following [Apostolical] verses : That by this most sacred 
Unction, either sex may be renewed, and our wounded glory rescued 
through the Spirit's plentitude. Choir. Hear our hymn," etc." 69: 
550:559. 

All this takes place during a Mass, which I have already shown 
in another chapter is nothing but a species of error, idolatry, and 
blasphemy. Does any one for a moment believe, after having read 
what I have already said, that the A^jostles "believed and preached 
'Hail! Holy Chrism, Hail! Holy Oil,' " and that they exorcised lifeless 
matter, oil and chrism? If, then, the Apostles did not "believe and 
preach" that, can the Church, then, truthfully say that she is Apos- 
tolic and that she "accepts no doctrine which does not come from the 
Apostles?" a. f. y. 

I will now give some more of her practices and doctrines and will 



198 , 

let you a. f. y. whether they are Apostolic or merely "human crea- 
tions." In her regulations for Lent the following may be found: 
"All the week days of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday 
are fast days of precept, on one meal, with the allowance of a moderate 
collation in the evening. * * * The following dispensations are 
granted. * * * 1. — The use of flesh-meats is allowed at every 
meal on the Sundays of Lent, and at the principal meal on Monday, 
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. [Why a person is allowed three 
meals, with meat, on Sundays, when one does no labor for temporal 
goods, and only "one meal, with the allowance of a moderate collation 
in the evening," on the days in which one is supposed to labor for 
temporal goods, I do not know, unless it requires more endurive 
strength to attend "divine services," consisting of a "mysterious" per- 
formance of "a creature of dust" changing "slime of the earth" into 
the "celestial God," the highly Apostolical "religious doings" of the 
Abbot robing himself with sacred vestments, from ten to fifteen min- 
utes, in the presence of the congregation, a sermon on the "Perpetual 
Virginity of the Blessed Virgin," based on Matt. 1:25 and Mark 6:3, 
the recitation during Mass, as many apparently intelligent persons 
do — for I have seen them do it — of the Rosary "one of the most 
protitable devotions" introduced into the Church by the Apostles in 
the thirteenth century, and the closing prayer of the "Angelus" — a 
prayer to the Blessed Virgin, which it is mathematically impossible 
for her to hear — which was introduced by (The Apostles, Oh, yes) 
Pope Urban II., in the (Apostolical) year 1095, to "call down the pro- 
tection of Mary on the Crusaders," (52:92,) than it does to labor for 
temporal goods.] 2. The use of eggs and white meats is allowed 
every day at the principal meal, as also at the collation. [The Church 
must be changeable, and does not always "teach and practice" the 
same regulations which she always has, for when I was on the farm 
yet, dviring the '80s, we were not allowed to eat eggs and meat at the 
same meal, during Lent, and if the Chiirch claims the right and jjower 
to change them at will, then she must be a "human creation" which is 
changeable, for God is the same "yesterday, today, and forever," and 
if the regulations were due to His voice then they could not change. 
Is that not so? a. f. y.] * * * 6. — On Sundays there is neither 
fast nor abstinence, but fish and flesh may not be used at the same 
meal." 53: Feb. 20, 1901. 

Now, I suppose it makes a lot of difference with God if one eats 



199 

on Sunday, at each meal, 2 ounces of fish and 2 ounces of flesh 
together or whether one eats 4 ounces of flesh, or 4 ounces of fish 
separately? What a whimsical Being this Catholic God must be, 
who would require this discrimination, by telling Pat and Fritz, 
through His Church, "You may each of you eat 4 ounces of food of 
one kind, but it is not allowed you to eat 2 ounces each of two kinds 
of food." 

Once upon a time a representative of a royal family, of one of the 
earliest Protestant European nations, made a visit to the United 
States. It so happened that there was to be a banquet, in a certain 
city, in honor of this distinguished person, on Wednesday during 
Lent, one of the days on which Catholies are not allowed to eat meat 
without a dispensation. Well, the Church, which is "lenient, on 
account of the weakness of the faithful" who had not the strength to 
resist the temi^tation of wanting to attend this banquet, and who 
believed they could not duly honor the distinguished guest without 
having a "done-up-brown" porter-house steak inside of their abdomi- 
nal regions, secured a dispension through one of the ambassadors of 
Christ, who also had an invitation to this banquet. So, in asking Grod 
for His voice in the matter, whether His chosen peo^jle, who had 
vowed to renounce "the world, the flesh, etc." may attend this banquet 
on certain conditions, a dispensation, the "voice" came back saying 
that the "dispensation permits Catholics at the dinner to partake of 
meat, but not of both meat and fish," Now, I ask, was this the 
"voice of God," or was it a human proceeding, this granting of a dis- 
pensation to eat meat on a day when it is not allowed to the faithful 
in general? Can one not honor a person without having a piece of 
meat in one's stomach? What sort of a disciple of Christ is it when 
one is ashamed to show his discipleshii^ by refraining from eating- 
meat in the presence of so-called "heretics?" Well, it was not long 
after this banquet when this ambassador of Christ was summoned, 
through a fatal illness, to appear before God and explain how he ex- 
pects this to apply to him: "Every one, therefore, that shall confess 
me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in 
Heaven." Matt. 10:32. 

Again : Can that fasting be pleasing to God that is done mechani- 
cally scrupulous only in a certain portion or part of the year? What 
is the object of fasting? Is it not to mortify our passions when they 
become so strong that we can scarce subdue their 'impelling forces 



200 

otherwise? And is it only forty days oiit of the year that our pas- 
sions impel us? Fasting, the way the Church prescribes it, is simply 
a "human creation." Whenever our passions impel us so that we can 
scarce control them, then is the time to reduce the quantity of our 
food, not the rejection of only certain kinds of it, if we find it impos- 
sible to subdue our passions without fasting. It is like a well-fed 
spunky horse that can scarcely be managed when well feeding is kept 
up, but half starve him and one can then easily manage him. So it is 
with our passions. When we are well fed they are always stronger 
than when we go hungry much of the time, and if we cannot control 
them on account of gluttonous eating, why, then, we ought to fast to 
weaken the force of our passions, be it Lent, Pentecostal, or any other 
time. Is that not so? a. f. y. This thing of prescribing what not, 
and what to eat, together at the same meal, and then giving a dispen- 
sation allowing a forbidden article to be used when it serves a worldly 
purpose, is that, or is it not a "human creation?"' a. f. y. 

I will now give you some acts which are recommended as virtues 
by the Church. "Act of virtue for the whole month" of November: 
"Do not go near the fire to warm yourself, except for some strong rea- 
son." 65:43. "Collect alms from your friends and relations to get 
Masses celebrated for the dead." [Of course, poverty vowed ambas- 
sadors of Christ need not practice an "Act of virtue for the whole 
month" by saying Masses for the souls in Purgatory, unless they are 
paid their "honorariums" for ihem.] * * * "Kiss three times in 
the day the image of the criicified Jesus." 65:63, 73, 76, 80, 84, 87, 
111, 119, 125. * * * "Visit the most Holy Sacrament with great 
devotion." * * * "Recite every day the Litany of Our Lady" — 
which is not heard by her. * * -' "Visit in some church an image 
of Mary." * * * "When you hear the clock strike, say an Ave 
Maria." * * * "Do not go in or out of your house without salut- 
ing Mary, with at least an Ave Maria." * * * "Kiss the earth 
three times, [a day] saying. Eternal Rest, etc." * * * "Do not 
quit your house without its being clearly necessary." [This would be 
a good virtue for some married men to practice evenings. ] * * * 
"Do not speak at all without necessity, or unless for spiritual edifica- 
tion." [This might be a good virtue to practice for "hen-pecked" 
husbands' wives who give them "tongue the year round," so that it 
makes living expenses light.] One time a married man was asked by 
his friend if his living expenses were heavy. He said: "No: because 



201 

I use my wife's temper for a furnace, her chilly moods for a refrigera- 
tor, her company manners for sugar, and then we have tongue the 
year round. So, you see my living expenses are light." 

Are the foregoing "acts of virtue" Apostolical, or "human crea- 
tions?" a. f. y. To judge from all that I have showed you, in this 
book so far, from the Church's own teachings, who do you suppose 
stands in the greater need of praying to be delivered "from the wor- 
ship of idols, the Pagans,' for whom the Church has the following 
prayer: "Almighty and everlasting God! who seekest not the death 
but the life of sinners; [If they are not Canaanites: in that case 
"thou shalt not suffer none at all to live : But shalt kill them with 
the edge oi the sword." Deut. 20:16, 17. Harken ye! ye Protestant 
Churches, who believe in an "Infallible" Bible, which is supposed to 
contain nothing but the "Word of God." Do ye in -this perceive the 
advance artillery of the "arms of the intellect" which will demolish 
the blasphemous, God»slandering, God calumniating passages in the 
Bible, which has made more infidels than any other one thing?] 
mercifully hear our prayers, and deliver them from the worship of 
idols," (H9:365,) or the Church herself? a. f. y. 

And is the Catholic Church any more Apostolic, with her cre- 
dentials that will reach back to the Apostels, when she "believes and 
teaches" a lot of erroneous, idolatrous, and superstitious things of 
which the Apostles could possibly know nothing? Cannot that 
Church be even more Apostolic than the Catholic Church, when that 
Church preaches Christ, without all those things which the Catholic 
Church has introduced from time to time, and which I have proven by 
mathematics — and mathematics is from God — are certainly errors? 
Supposing — and this was often the case — that a good bishop or a good 
priest, who protested against some of the abuses and inconsistencies of 
the Church, as for instance, if a priest or bishop should now protest 
against the practice of granting permission for dancing the "highly 
indecent, obscene, impure" round dances when the money derived 
from them goes into the treasury of the Church, would be excom- 
municated by the Church, would the succession of the spiritual chain 
be broken thereby? The material or legal credentials would, no 
doubt, be broken, but would that invalidate the right to preach and 
teach the simple uncorr\;pted truths of Christ? If it does, then the 
parent has no right to teach the child anything about the Church, 
but that this is a prerogative belonging only to lawful successors of 



202 

the Apostles, and must, thereforeii only be taught by them. But is this 
a fact? "By the time they [children] are old enough to be sent to 
school, they ought to know not only all the ordinary prayers, but also 
the princii)al articles of faith and the obligations of a Christian!" 
78:12. Well, then, if the parents have the right to teach the child 
the "principal articles of faith and the obligations of a Christian," has 
not a reformer, who has been excommunicated by the Church as a 
"heretic" — just as a bishop or a priest would be excommunicated as a 
heretic, were he now to preach against the idolatrous worship of the 
Blessed Virgin and the Saints, because of having read this book, 
which proves such a practice to be an error — the same right to preach 
and teach the reformed Christian religion, — the truths taught by 
Christ and the Apostles — without the accompanying error of the 
Blessed Virgin and the Saints' invocation as before? And if he has 
the right to j)reach and teach the truths only of Christ and the Apos- 
tles, as the parents have to teach their children the "principal articles 
of faith," and he rents a hall and preaches and teaches thus, and he 
finally secures a following which names his gatherings after him, 
would that be a "human creation," if in the future chiirches were 
named after him and which taught what he taught? And could he 
not ordain others to succeed him? And was that not the case with 
most of the Protestant Churches? Yet the Catholic Church, relying 
on her credentials, and not on her teachings, applies John 10:1 to 
Protestants ministers, which would make them thieves and robbers, 
for she says: "Now it is as plain as the sun in the firuiament, that 
none but the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church have 
derived their ordination and mission from the Apostles; and that the 
pastors of all other churches have climhed up into the fold hy another 
way: consequently they are — as is above said in the text." 50:147,148. 

She says furthermore: "The Protestant Church has not received 
her mission from the Apostles or their lawful successors, and, there- 
fore, she has no power to administer the sacraments or to preach the 
Word of God." 47:80. According to this, then, one may infer that 
Protestant ministers who have solemnized marriages had no power to 
do so, hence you Protestants who were married by a Protestant min- 
ister — who had "no i^ower to administer" the marriage rite or sacra- 
ment — are living in adultery, your children are illegitimate, yea, you 
yourselves are illegitimate, if your parents were married by a Protestant 
minister. 

How do you like this awakening to the truth, logically deducted, 



203 

from the teachings of a Church "which always falls back on her cre- 
dentials as the successors of the Apostles, but who never calls your 
attention to the doctrines and practices introduced into the Church, 
centuries after the days of the Apostles, and which were the primary 
causes of "heresies" and reforms? But do you belive it, that Protest- 
ant ministers have "no power to administer" the marriage rite, regarded 
as one of the sacraments of the Catholic Church, sacraments which 
the Protestant Church "has no power to administer." Credentials! 
Credentials! is the cry of the Church. Examine our credentials, she 
says, but she never says. Examine our doctrines and practices, and 
see if you can not trace them to the Apostles. She knows she would 
be trapped and cornered if she did that. But some how or other my 
"presumptuous ignorance" was inquisitive enough to examine her 
teaehings and thereby I made the discovery that in reality she is 
more of a "human creation" than many of the Protestant Churches to 
which she so freely likes to apply that epithet. Have I not completely 
turned the tables on her already? a. f. y. 

I will turn another table on her and that is worship. She says: 
"It is the correct thing to know that it is forbidden for a Catholic to 
take part in any Protestant service under any circumstances. To 
know that it is forbidden, not because there is any fear on the part of 
the Church that a well-instructed Catholic would be led away from 
her fold, but because it is offering a gratuitous insult to God for a 
consistent Catholic to take part in a form of worship believed to be 
heretical., and another insult to the religious feelings of sincere 
members of the Church in question by reducing a reliqious service, 
very dear and sacred to them, to the level of a mere spectacle,"^^ 
63:172-178. (All italics in this quotation are mine.) 

We will now see what this Protestant worshij) and religious ser- 
vise consists of that is "heretical," a "gratuitous insult to God," and 
that is reduced to the "level of a mere spectacle." 

During ray life-time I have attended all told. Including funeral 
services in church, about a dozen Protestant religious services or wor- 
ship. When I was yet on the farm I attended a few such meetings on 
Sunday afternoons, more for the purpose of seeing my schoolmates, — 
this always being when there was no school — and passing the time, 
which sometimes seems to hang heavy on a person when not working 
on a Sunday afternoon on the farm. These religious services I found 
about the same in the different cities where I attended them a few 



204 

times. Usually they consisted of a hymn or two, such as "Praise Ye 
the Lord," "God is Our Refuge," "Come to the Saviour," "All Hail 
the Power of Jesus' Name," "The Mercy Seat," "The Great Physi- 
cian," "O Happy Day," "Turn to the Lord," etc., all soul-inspiring, 
comprehensible hymns that one could understand, and which would 
be according to St. Paul who said, "I will sing with the spirit, I will 
sing also with the understanding." I. Cor. 14-15. This part of the 
worship, then, can hardly be "heretical," nor a very great "gratuitous 
insult to God," because the hymns were sung to God, and not to hosts 
of heaven who could not hear them anyway, and could, therefore, not 
be a very shocking "mere spectacle" to those who hold their form of 
"religious service very dear and sacred to them." After the hymn or 
two were sung, then the Minister would read a chapter or some pas- 
sages from the Bible, and then would pray, as St. Peter did in Acts 
4:29-30, that is, to God, not to some host of heaven who cannot hear 
it. This, then, can not be very "heretical," nor a "gratuitous insult to 
God," to pray to Him according to the way the Apostles prayed, can 
it? After the prayer there would be another hymn, which one could 
understand. Then the Minister would read the text he would preach 
on, which was never Matt. 1:25 and Mark 6:3 for a sermon the "Per- 
petual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin," or John 19:27. "Behold thy 
mother," as a text for a sermon on the "Invocation of the Blessed 
Virgin and the Saints," but a text that would bring forth a sermon 
that would infuse into one a stronger feeling of trying to assist our 
fellowmen, and the inculcating of the Christ spirit, so that one could 
see and understand that one ought to lead a Christ-like life among his 
fellowmen, and not flee to the desert, or to the cloister, to make one's 
salvation sure, and let all the rest go to the devil if tliey wanted to. So, 
then, the sermon could not have been very "heretical," nor a "gratuitous 
insult to God," nor was it a "mere spectacle," was it? After the ser- 
mon there would be another hymn, that one could understand, followed, 
while the congregation was yet standing, with the benediction, which 
one also could understand. 

Now, what is there in all this that I have mentioned about the 
Protestant worship or religious service — and I suppose I have not 
gone far wrong from correctly describing it, and if I have, if some 
Minister will tell me about it, I will make the correction in subsequent 
editions, should there be a demand for other editions — that is "heret- 
ical," a "gratuitous insult to God," or of reducing to the "level of a 



205 

mere spectacle" a religious service that is "very dear and sacred" to 
any one? If any one can see any of those characteristics in it, I wish 
they would please point them out to me, for I am very docile, and 
desire to learn something so I will not always have clinging to me that 
sweet sounding phrase of being a person of "presumptuous ignorance." 
We will now examine the highly Apostolic worship or religious 
service of the Catholic Church that is not "heretical," or a "gratuitous 
insult to God;" that is "very dear and sacred" to the faithful, which 
bears no ear marks of being a "mere spectacle," and for which she has 
credentials showing that it is the same that the Apostles "believed and 
preached," and which would not be heretical on that account. We 
will first look at the morning worship and then at the evening religious 
service. On Easter Sunday, which is the day the Church celebrates 
one of the great feasts, a Protestant goes to a Cetholic Church. The 
first thing that attracts the attention is the Bishop or Abbot coming 
into the Church, seating himself upon a throne, and with a master, or 
two, of ceremonies, and about a dozen supemumaries, each with some 
piece of a vestment, begins robing himself, requiring from ten to 
fifteen minutes time to do it. Then during the services, which lasts, 
with the sermon, about two hours, there arc a number of genuflections 
bowings to one another, embracings, kissings of the ring * * * the 
Gospel book, the incensings, the going hither and thither of the six 
or more Priests, and supemumaries, in the sanctuary, the Latin sing- 
ing, which is not according to I. Cor. ]4:15; [for even the Priests 
sometimes do not understand the singing when there is a "little grand 
opera" with it, — as a choir-master once said they were going to give 
us, and which I have already referred to in a previous chapter — be- 
cause two different Priests at different times made a break in the 
middle of the Gloria, got up from their seats,, on which they are sup- 
posed to sit while the choir sings the Gloria to the end, vront to the 
altar and there stood, at one time, five and a half minutes, humiliated 
before the whole congregation for making a break, while the choir 
sang the remainder of the Gloria. One time, after this had happened 
a few times, I said to the organist, with whom I am well acquainted, 
why they did not stop singing when the priest made the break, for no 
one, or at most but a few, would know the difference whether the 
whole Gloria or but half of it had been sung or not. He said the 
music was put before him, that he looked at it until it was played to 
the end, and could, therefore, not know of the break unless some one 



206 

told him of it, and which was never done,] then the "Ave Maria" is 
sung, which is a Latin hymn in honor to the Blessed Virgin, which is 
not singing to God, hence Must be "heretical," [By "heretical" I mean 
all prayers and hymns not addressed to God, but to hosts oi heaven 
who, as I have proved mathematically, can not hear them] and a "gra- 
tuitous insult to God" for not placing child-like trust and confidence 
in His promises made through His Son, Jesus Christ, who said: 
"Amen, amen, I say to you: if ymi ask the Father anything in my 
name. He will give it to you" (John 17:23); and in not following the 
teachings of the Apostles in which they tell us as follows: "Speaking 
to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing 
and making melody in your hearts to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19) — not to 
the Blessed Virgin, and that in a language that is not understood, 
but by a very few, outside of the clergy. This unintelligible Latin 
praying and singing, in the Church, certainly cannot be as fruitful, 
impressive, and edifying to any one, as doing those things would in a 
language that the most of the congregation may understand. Even . 
Catholic writer mentions this as being a fact when applied to singing 
only, and what must it not be when apjjlied to praying: "The writer 
has lately attended a church in which during the Way of the Cross an 
English version of the 'Stabat Mater' is sung bj'^ choir and congrega- 
tion. The Old Latin hymn is so wedded to the plaintive chant that 
the substitution of the vernacular seems at first an undignified and 
almost un-Christian innovation. But after the first shock one grows 
accustomed to the change, and the lover of the ancient must confess 
that the English words make a greater impression on the mind and 
heart of the average member of the congregation and help to keep the 
attention fixed on the sorrowful events of the journey to Calvary." 
53: March 12, 1902. After the services are over there is usually said 
the "Angelus," which is a prayer to the Blessed Virgin, a prayer intro- 
duced into the Church, not by the Ajjostles, — for they prayed to God, 
not even praying to Jesus, — but by Pojje Urban II. in 1095. Against 
the sermon for Easter I have nothing to say, for, as in all Churches, 
there are some elements of ti'uthand and good in the Catholic Church, 
and some sermons are good and inspiring, and it is not against such 
that I inveigh, but it is against that which is erroneous, idolatrous, 
superstitious and blasphemous that I direct my feeble blows, with the 
"arms of the intellect," which God gave me to use and not impeach 
His wisdom and design by throwing them under the feet of blind. 



I 



207 

unthinking and unreasoning faith. That, then, is a description of 
most of the Sunday morning worship on Easter and a few other times. 
When there is a Corpus Christi or a Forty Hour Devotion ceremony 
in connection with it, there is usually, also, a procession in the church 
such as I have already referred to in another chapter. The afternoon 
service of Vespers I will pass by, only mentioning that there is not a 
word used in it except in Latin. 

The evening services during Lent consist principally of the reci- 
tation of the Rosary, oftentimes a sermon on the Blessed Virgin, 
besides other sermons. Way of the Cross, on Friday, and Benediction 
with what is called the Blessed Sacrament — the Eucharistic God — 
which, as I have already shown is nothing but a wafer, a piece of 
baked dough, and before which the faithful, — and even the priests, as 
during Holy Week services, already mentioned, — bow and prostrate 
themselves in worship, which, when the Pagans do that before man- 
form images of wood or stone gods the Church*" calls idolatry, and for 
which she has a prayer that God icaight deliver them from the worship 
of. What sort of a prayer the Pagans have that their gods might de- 
liver the Catholics from the worship of idols when worshipping a 
wafer God and the Blessed Virgin I do not know, for I have not come 
across any such prayer yet. 

The evening May Devotions, during the month of May, I will 
only mention the closing exercises which I have already described 
elsewhere, with its procession in the Church aisles, in which a statue 
of the Blessed Virgin is carried on a platform by four young ladies, 
and the singing of "Sancta Maria, Ora, ora, ora pro nobis," which is a 
"religious service very dear and sacred" to Catholics, and which is not 
reduced to the "level of a mere speciacle." What the Church means 
by a "mere spectacle" I do not know, unless it means looking at a 
Protestant Minister praying to God in a language that is understood, 
and with his eyes closed, so as not to be distracted by the sense of 
sight, and the singing to God in a language that one understands, 
instead of looking at the Abbot robe himgelf, the processions in 
which a wafer is carried around as a God, the carrying of a statue of 
the Blessed Virgin and singing "Sancta Maria, Ora pro nobis," the 
"fetching in solemn procession" from the Sacristy of the Oil of Unc- 
tion and of the Catechumen and saluting them with "Hail! Holy Oil, 
Hail! Holy Chrism;" and singing on the festival of All Saints the 
hymmis "Ut queant laxis resonare fibris." Old prayer book of mine, 



208 

page 266. There is no translation accompanying it, therefore I do 
not know what it means, unless I was to infer from its close similarity 
in sound to the following: "Th' Church lacks reasoning fibers." 

Now, taking it all in all, which worship and religious service is 
the more likely to be "heretical," a "gratuitous insult to Grod," and 
has been reduced to the "level of a mere spectacle," the Catholic 
Church's, or the Protestant Church's worship and religious service, 
according to the descriptions I have given of them? a. f. y. Have I 
made my word good when I said that I would turn another table on 
the Church? a. f. y. 

And now, which of the two Churches is the more of a "human 
invention," the Protestant Church, — even though the different names 
by which she is designated were not known prior to the sixteenth 
century, — with her singing and praying to God, or the Catholic 
Church with much of her singing and praying to the Blessed Vi^'^in; 
a doctrine which has no Jbetter foundatien than the supposed vi^ .bns 
of so-called saints, over a thousand years after the time of Christ and 
the Apostles? Yea, even as late as the time of Pope Pius IX. an arti- 
cle of faith was declared, and by him in 1854, on December 8, was 
"solemnly" announced the "dogma of the Immaculate Conception and 
an annual Holy Day made of it for the Church," (5:635,) so that prior 
to the time of Pius IX one could go to heaven without believing in 
the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, while now the 
faithful must believe it, because it has been made an article of faith, 
otherwise they become "heretics" and will, therefore, go to hell to 
burn forever with Luther, Pelogins, and other heretics, who were a 
"company of libertines, vow-breakers, apostates, impious blasphemers, 
and men of no account." 17:74, 75^ 76. 

If these humanly invented doctrines do not let up soon, who can 
tell but that one day an article of faith may not be declared to the 
effect that the Blessed Virgin was conceived by the operation of the 
Holy Ghost, without the intervention of St. Joachim? Such an as- 
sertion has already been made. "In 1876 a condemnation was 

pronounced on among whose errors was the assertion that Mary 

was conceived by the operation of the Holy Ghost, without the inter- 
vention of St. Joachim." Then the historian goes on to say. "Yet 
who can say that in the centuries to come this dogma may not also 
win its place, and the Virgin thus be elevated to an equality with her 
Son?" 85:611, Vol. 3. Does it really make any difference to one who 



209 

desires to lead a Christ-like life whether or not the Blessed Virgin 
had other sons and daughters and that Joseph knew her? X)r whether 
she was never tainted with Original Sin — another blasphemous error, 
that I will direct the blows of the "arms of the intellect" against in 
another chapter — or whether she was conceived with the intervention 
of St. Joachim or not? 

Here the Church has been adding doctrines and practices which 
the Apostles never '"believed and preached," yet she calls herself the 
Apostolic Church, relying on her credentials as legal successors to the 
Apostles, believing she can thereby always "bumfoozle" the people, 
but never calling attention to the doctrines and practices she intro- 
duced, for which she has no credentials showing that the Apostles 
"believed and i^reached" them. If the Church had always confined 
herself to the teaching and preaching of what the Apostles did, and 
had ignored or anathematized the "revelations" made through the 
visions and apparitions of so-called Saints, as St. Paul would have 
done, (Gral. 1:8,) she would not have been persecuted as she has been 
nor would I have uttered a word against her. But as she says she will 
never "yield one iot* of her doctrine," (79:19,) I know that I must 
thoroughly show her up, if I wish to succeed in bringing about my 
object, that of the Union of the Churches. And as a noted man once 
said that some evils — which the man-made doctrines are, iii that it 
keeps the people from accepting real Christianity — could be laughed 
down easier than be preached down, is the reason for my seeming 
humorous disrespect for her, as I will use the same method against 
other erroneous and absurd beliefs, it cannot, then, be construed to 
mean that I have it in specially for the Roman Catholic Church, 
which, indeed, seems to be quite an api:)ropriate name for her if one is 
to judge from the names of twelve Cardinals — Apostles of the Church. 
"Rome, April 15. — At a secret consistory held today. Archbishop Mar- 
tinelli, * * * was preconized a Cardinal. Eleven other Cardinals 
were created. The new Cardinals are: The Most Revs. Sebastiano 
Martinelli, * * * Alessandro Sanminiatelli-Zabarella, * * * 
Casimiro Gennari, * * * Francesco Salesio Delia Volpe, * * * 
Felice Cavignis, * * * Luigi Tripepi, * * * Donato Maria 
Dall Oli, * * * Ginlio Boschi, * * * Bartolomeo Bacilieri, 
* * * Agostino Riboldi, * * * Giovanni Kuiaz de Kolzielsko 
Puzyna, * * * and Leone De Skrbensky." 53: April 24, 1901. 
Do You see any Patricks, or Wilhelms, or Smiths, or Jones, or Browns 



210 

in the list? Well, then, is not "Roman" quite an appropriate name 
for the Catholic Church? 

Probably you do not know that the Church had a very narrow 
escape once from being called the Alexandrian or the Constantino- 
politan? Read history and you will learn how "God chose Rome for 
the Apostolic See," It was the arms of the most powerful influence 
that made it so, and not the Providence and Design of God. The 
uncorrupted and non-man-made Church established by Christ and the 
Apostles, should today be known as the Christian Church, and not 
the Roman Catholic Church. The fact that the church goes by the 
name of Roman Catholic instead of Christian, shows her to be much 
of a "human invention" just as I have proved from her own writings 
that she is. Then she has the boldness to assert that "this is the 
Catholic faith, which unless man believes faithfully, he cannot be 
saved." 2:65, Sec. 3. 

Can one not be saved if one tries to live the Christ-like life as 
near as it is in one's power to do so, even if one can not "believe faith- 
fully" that the Blessed Virgin can hear at one and the same time — 
simultaneously — every second of time, over 46,000 prayers, as I have 
already shown, would be what she would have to do, if she were to 
hear all the prayers addressed to her? If one can be saved, then are 
not the claims of the Church that "Outside of this living, teaching, 
governing, regenerating, life-giving Church, there is no Christianity?" 
(52:28, Nov. 1901;) that for the "Catholic the forsaking of faith, is a 
sin deserving damnation," (95:20,) and that "without which no one 
can be saved," (96:6,) but hollow mockeries and idle pretensions? 
a. f. y. 

If the Church is "God's oracle," and the Pope is His chosen 
Vicar, then why did not our Lord appear to him in a vision and 
deliver to him the promise, "I will grant the grace of final penitence 
to those who communicate on the first Friday of nine consecutive 
months," instead of appearing to a Nun, Margaret Mary, and whose 
unsupported words have been accepted by the Church as the founda- 
tion of an important belief? Is that not an important belief to know 
the above promise in order to avail one's self of it? The Catholic who 
lived prior to 1675 knew nothing of this promise, for it was made in 
that year, yet the Church says that "she accepts no doctrine which 
does not come from the Apostles," (5:318,) and that "if anything is 
promulgated or definitely decreed by the Church as being part of the 



211 

faith, the meaning is that this was a thing which the Apostles them- 
selves helieved and preached.'" 45:59-60. Is not the Church making 
false, lying statements when she says that? Have I not proved her a 
misrepresenting, contradictory, humanly invented Chiirch, from her 
own writings? a. f. y. 

Yet she says of herself, "The Catholic Church, the work of God. 
All other 'Churches' are the work of men, [Which may be better than 
the work of the evil spirits who appeared to so-called Saints, who, if 
they lived nowadays, they weuld, probably, give the probate judge 
something to do to earn his salary,] merely human inventions, and 
consequently devoid of Divine authority," and that "any Church 
which has not been in existance for 1,868 years is not the Church 
which Christ, the Son of God, established before He left the world to 
go to the Father."' 16: Oct. 3, 1902. Is it by the label on the outside 
of a thing that the contents of its inside are always known ? Is it not 
by the name of the Church but by the teachings of her which proves 
whether she is the Church Christ "established before He left the 
world to go to the Father?" Is that not so? And if a parent has a 
right to teach the child the "principal articles of faith [Which includes 
the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, which I have proved mathemat- 
ically — and mathematics is from God — is an error] and the oblgations 
of a Christian," (78:12.) has not, then, the reformer or "heretic" the 
same right and authority to teach, to all who want to be taught, the 
simple truths as taught by the Apostles, without the erroneous 
article of faith of the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, or any other 
article of faith introduced by the "man-made" Roman Catholic Church 
centuries after the days of the Apostles, if such a one wants to teach 
them? If one needs no credentials to pray to God, then one also 
needs no credentials to teach God's Word, The families who can af- 
ford it, can they not engage a private tutor, — without credentials from 
constituted authorities showing the right to teach, — to teach their 
children if they want to? If one has no right to teach what the Apos- 
tles taught, without credentials, then one has no right to teach or tell 
a relative or friend the evil effects of drunkenness, gambling, licentious- 
ness, etc., but that must all be left to those who have the "cred- 
entials" to teach good morals, therefore, one's relative or friend may 
go to ruin and destruction because one has not the "credentials" to 
teach thus and thereby deter one from entering such a path. But is 
that so? Well, then, I hope there will be no more of this crying of 



212 

"credentials" or "Divine authority" as a requisite for the right to 
teach the simple, uncorrupted, comprehensible truths taught by the 
Apostles. And for that reason everyone who has found what he be- 
lieves is not an essential that is necessary for him to believe in order 
to lead a Christ-like life, and which his creed requires him to believe, 
but which he cannot believe any longer because his intellect directly 
oj)poses such a belief — as for instance, not being able to believe in 
jjraying to the Blessed Virgin after the intellect says it is imi^ossible 
for any being, except Grod almighty, to hear over over 46,000 petitions 
every second of time — may preach a reformed belief, and if he has a 
following that afterwards names a Church after him, but which he has 
not really founded, for he preaches only the Word of God, in the Bible 
as he interjDrets it, then the Church bearing his name cannot be his 
work or his "invention." Such a church would in reality be less a 
"human invention" than is a church which teaches the invocation of 
the Blessed Virgin or any one else except God Himself, as St. Peter 
and the Apostles did — which is different from that of asking your 
brethren, in the midst of whom you are, to pray for you as St. Paul 
asked those on earth to do for him, because they were not 46,000 others 
asking at one and the same time the brethren to pray for them. The 
one would j^reach only that which was found in the Bible, even 
though an error in its interpretation may be made, but for which 
plenty of texts may be found to support it, while the other teaches a 
thing for which there is no better foundation for it than visions of 
Saints many centuries after Christ and the Apostles had come and 
gone, and which have been jjroved mathematically as being errors. 
And that no Church is entirely correct in the interpretation of Script- 
ure may be seen by the error of its spokesman who said that "Christ 
is not put on except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic table." 
We know that Christ must be put on through the operation of the 
mind by an act of the will, which is an entirely different process jfrom 
that of taking a wafer or a piece of baked dough into the mouin and 
washing it down into the stomach with a tablespoonful of water, a 
stomach which, by an iron-clad rule, has been kept free from rot-gut 
whiskey, stale-beer, sour-wine, limburger cheese, unions, etc,, so that 
it may be a worthy receptacle to receive the little piece of baked dough 
and tablespoonful of water, with "due reverence." Likewise a Church 
may take James 5:14 so literally that after feeling of one's pulse may 
say, "I will not give John Extreme Unction now for I do not think he 



213 

is going tc die yet." Or the same Church may have a good supply of 
the "eye-salve" of Apoc. 3:18 with which she anoiuts the eyes of the 
blind so that they may see, just like anointing in Extreme Unction 
blots out sins. For all of which she has "warrant of Scripture," while 
another church would therefore, refuse to salute inanimate matter 
with "Hail! Holy Oil," "Hail! Holy Chrism." Hence our Church 
may be the Church of Christ as well as the other. 

If any one obeys the commandments which Jesus told the young 
man to keep, in Matt. 19:18-21, who wanted to known what he should 
do to have life ever-lasting, — one may be saved regardless of doctrines 
and dogmas. Jesus did not tell the young man of a faith "which 
unless man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved," did He, after the 
young man said: "All these have I kept from my youth, what is yet 
wanting of me?" Matt. 19:20. Therefore, the church of Christ is not 
the believing in certain articles of faith or doctrines, but a religion of 
humanity, which is summed up in His commandment, "That you love 
one another as I have loved you," (John 15:12,) and when we do that 
we shall be saved whether we are members of the Roman Catholic, 
Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Christian, Unitarian, or any 
other church which does not blaspheme Grod, by saying He has given 
us deceitful senses, for if we have deceitful senses, and God is the only 
cause, then He must be the cause of them if they exist, and exist they 
must otherwise thej' could not be spoken of. Now, it is all those 
who believe in God, and in the leadership of Jesus Christ, that I want 
to enlist under one common banner, by destroying the denominational 
lines, sectarian walls, and so-called impenetrable barriers which I have 
begun to do by undermining and demolishing, with the "arms of the 
intellect," and the doctrines and beliefs of a Church which says 
that "she rejects all overtures for reunion unless accomp)ained by ac- 
ceptance of her teachings and submission to her rule." 6: April 4, 
We know now that such a thing is an impossibility, as a reunion with 
a Church which has so many errors as I have proved she has, there- 
fore the whole superstructure must be torn down, — to make room for 
one in which all can meet on a common platform, — by undermining 
her fundamental doctrines which I leave to the reader to a. f. y., 
whether I have have succeeded in doing so or not. 

And now as a last word to the members of that Church of which 
I have analyzed and exposed her errors, you need not feel in the least 
humiliated that you have so long been blinded with her verbiage, for 



214 

I too, wp to my thirty- seventh year of age, firmly believed all that she 
taught, and. I believe it is rather a mark of intellectual progress [and 
intellect is from God just as much as faith may be] if you have ad- 
vanced so much so that now you may be able^to discern an error where 
before you could not. And as I will attempt to analyze and expose 
the errors, absurdities and blasphemies of the remaining subjects 
which I will consider you may see, then, that if you have been blind 
in regard to some of the errors taughht by your Church, others are 
not much freer from the same charge, hence they cannot point the 
finger of blindness at you without involving themselves. If, then, I 
have not quite succeeded in bringing together the two great religious 
bodies of believers, the Catholics and the non-Catholics, I hope to do 
so after considering next the beliefs which are, I believe held in com- 
mon by both bodies of believers, namely, the Diety of Jesus Christ, 
the Trinity, Original Sin and Baptism, the Resurrection, the Devil, 
and the Bible, as containing nothing but the inspired Word of God, 
Even though there was nothing else to cause the Christian world to 
come together on a common platform, the subjects which will next be 
analyzed — the way I will analyze them — ought to bring them together 
on a common platform for a common defense against the onslaught 
which will be made on those subjects, just as the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees joined hands in a common defensse against the onslaught 
Jesus made on their cherished customs, practices and beliefs. I will 
attempt to prove as conclusively, as I did it that the Blessed Virgin 
cannot hear over 46,000 petitions at one and the same time, every sec- 
ond of time from one end of the year to the other, that the general 
belief on those subjects are all wrong, just as much so as the atheist 
and infidel is wrong, in believing — or pretending to believe — that 
there is no God. I will give you the thoughts, — which I was forced 
to believe are true, otherwise I would not proclaim them in this book, 
and to the world, — which came to me in connection with those sub- 
jects which will next be considered. 



. CHAPTER IX. 



DEITY OF CHRIST ANE THE TRINITY. 

As the subjects under this head are closely inter-related to each 
other we will consider them, therefore, together. With the destruc- 
tion of one of those doctrines the other must, as a natural consequence, 
crumble to pieces with it. I will give you the teachings of the Church 
on those subjects so that you may see the position of the Church in 
regard to them: "We believe that Jesus Christ is both true God and 
true man." 29:70. According to that, God is changeable, if at any 
time He becomes man, yet the Bible says: "And as a vesture thou 
shalt change them, [Earth and Heavens] and they shall be changed. 
But thou art always the self-same and thy years shall not fail." Ps. 
10] :27-28. There must be a discrepancy here if "God became man in 
time" and yet is "always the self-same." That would be like a frame 
house that was reduced to ashes by fire yet it is "always the self -same" 
house. How plain and comprehensible that is (?). 

"How many Persons are there in God? There are three Persons 
in God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Is each one of 
the three Persons God? Yes; the Father is true God, the Son is 
true God, and the Holy Ghost is true God. Are they not, then, three 
Gods? No; the three Persons are but one God. Why are the three 
Persons but one God? Because all three Persons have one nature 
and one substance." 29:60. That reduced to a human analogy would 
be like the following: A married couple, A, have three grown sons 
named Peter, James and John, we will say. A teacher asks a child, 
"Do you know three persons named Peter, James and John, sons of 
Mr. and Mrs. A, ?" "Yes." "Is each of these three persons Man?" 
"Yes; Peter is true Man, James is true Man, and John is true Man." 
"Are they not, then, three Men?" "No; the three persons are but one 
Man." "Why are the three i)ersons but one Man?" "Because all 
three persons have one nature and substance." No wonder it requires 
Catholic schools to teach Faith. By the same i^rocess of reasoning 
"because all three persons have one nature and substance" and are 
therefore but one man, then there is but one man in the world, for all 
men have one nature — flesh, and substance — soul. No wonder Solo- 



216 

man had seven hundred parlor, and three hundred "pot slingers,'* 
"kitchen mechanics," "biscuit-shooter" wives, for no doubt, being 
such a wise man, he understood that all men having but "one nature 
and substance" there could be but one Man, and if there was to be 
but one Ladies' Man, why he might as well be it as any other person, 
which it seems he carried out in practice, by marrying a thousand 
of them. 

A child is taught that three things of like substance and nature, 
as for instance, man or apple makes three men or three api^les, but 
when three persons are each of the same divine nature and substance 
they are not three distinct co-equal, co-substantial Gods. There is no 
wonder that such an idiotic, absurd, nonsensical reasoning as that 
used in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, the Church should say 
in answer to the question, "Can we comprehend this mystery? No; 
it is impossible that our weak and limited intellect, which cannot 
understand even created things except imperfectly, should compre- 
hend a mystery which is infinitely above all created things." 30:90. 

I will tell you why the Trinity is a "mystery" that our "weak and 
limited intellect cannot comprehend" : it is because there is no truth 
to it, and when an error is taught as a truth it, indeed, becomes a 
"mystery." Yet this is a doctrine that is "most important; for it is 
the principal and fundamental doctrine of Christianity, inasmuch 
that to reject it would be to deny the Christian Faith." 30:91. Well, 
I believe that one can reject it, as the Unitarians do, and still not 
deny the Christian religion, "fs any one of these Persons older, or 
more powerful, than the others? No; all three Persons are from 
eternity; all three are equally powerful, good and perfect; because all 
three are but one God." 30:88. But if the Son is begotten of the 
Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both, why, then, is none 
of the Divine Persons older than the others? Because the Son is be- 
gotten from all eternity, and the Holy Ghost also proceeds from all 
eternity." 30:90. This is like saying that one was "begotten" when 
one's father was born and that one's age, therefore, dates from the 
birth of one's father, which would make one as old as one's father, 
and like a child "proceeding" from its mother when its mother's 
mother was born. Here is a quotation which, however, shatters the 
teacliing that the Son and Holy Ghost are as old and powerful as the 
Father. "The works of Omnipotence and Creation are particularly 
attributed to the Father, because He is the principle to which the 



217 

two other persons owe their eternal origin."' 30:90. According to" 
that, then, if the Father did not exist there would be no "principle" 
from which the other two Persons could originate. Does not that 
utterly shatter the doctrine that the three Persons are equal? Cer- 
tainly the thing that originates is another, even though it is attempted, 
with "verbiage,' to blind one with the word "eternal," cannot be as; 
old and of equal importance as the "principle" from which it origi- 
nates, and if it were not for this "principle" the thing would not have 
originated at all. Is that not so? 

Here is some more verbiage : "The Father begets the Son by the 
knowledge of Himself." 30:90. Do you know what that means, to 
beget by the "knowledge of Himself?" Well, a school child is sup- 
posed to "understand" that before it is sufficiently "instructed" to 
comply with the exhortation of John 6:54, because that is of more 
importance than John 3 :5, for in the latter case a ten day old baby 
has heard "his voice," (John 3:8,) and is, therefore, ready to be 
"born again" — baptized — and needs not to be instructed. 

Here is some more that undermines the doctrine of equality in 
the persons of the Trinity: "The Son will assuredly hear the Mother, 
[Blessed Virgin] and the 'Father the Son." 5:7-41. Why does the 
Son have to appeal to the Father, if He is true God, and as powerful 
as the Father? Does that not prove that the Father is greater and 
more powerful than the Son, if the Son does not grant a petition 
without asking the Father for it ? It is amusing to read of some of 
the defenses made of the Trinity. Dr. Dowie, in discussing with a 
friend one God in three Persons; and one Baptism in three immer- 
sions — which is one immersion for each God — has this to say: "I 
said to a friend who discussed this the other day, 'Did you have two 
dinners?' 'No, I had one dinner.' 'Well,' I said, 'you dined with me, 
and you had one dinner. You had soup, did you not? and meat [No 
swine's flesh, of course] and pudding?' 'Yes sir.' 'Well, you. had 
three courses, and you had only one dinner.' No one would call that 
three dinners." 97:18. If either of the courses in that Trinitarian 
dinner was of equal power and substance and nature, then I would 
like to run a Dowieite hotel, with the Doctor as- the star boarder, and 
I would serve for the first course a plate of tomato or potato soup; for 
the second course a bowl of the same, and for the last course a cup 
of the same, and would then have the Doctor to give tlianks for the 
three course one dinner of food of equal power, substance, and 



218 

nature. I am afraid he would soon get tired of his Trinitarin meals. 
What say you? 

Here is another explanation: "How can we somewhat explain 
this mystery by the example of a three-leaved clover? The three 
leaves differ, but are one and the same plant; the three Divine Per- 
sons differ, but are one and the same Grod. Are the three Divine 
Persons equal in all things? Yes; they are perfectly equal in all 
things." Do any of the three leaves originate in the other leaves? 
Do they not all originate in the stem of the plant? The plant repre- 
sents God and the leaves the three persons, all of which originated 
and proceeded from the stem of the plant. If that is the case, then 
they would all have the same origin, would they not? Then how does 
that agree with the Father being the "princij)le to which the two 
other Persons owe their eternal origin." That illustration is, there- 
fore, not to the point then, is it? 

Again the Church says: "His [Jesus'] wounds are the most 
powerful intercessors with the Heavenly Father." If Jesus and the 
Father are "perfectly equal in all things," why should the wounds of 
Jesus be the "most powerful intercessors with the Heavenly Father?" 
If they are "ijerfectly equal in all things" then why does not Jesus 
require some one to show Him one's wounds in order to induce Him 
to grant an answer to a petition, just as it is supposed the Father 
requires them? The fact that the Father requires the showing of 
wounds as intercessors and the Son does not, proves conclusively that 
the Father and Jesus are not equal in all things, and have the same 
nature. And Jesus never said that He is Grod. He called Himself 
the Son of God, which is quite a different proposition from that of 
being God. When Jesus said to the mother of the sons of Zebedee, 
who asked that her two sons might have privileged places in heaven, 
that "My chalice indeed you shall drink: but to sit on my right or 
left hand, is not mine to give you, but to them for whom it is pre- 
pared by my Father," (Matt. 20:23,) does that sound as though He 
claimed equal power with God as God? If three persons compose a- 
board, and one has equal power to that of any other member of the 
board, would he say that it is not mine to do so and so but it is Mr. 
A's., another member of the board? If God is a Trinity of three 
divine co-equal, co-essential and cousubstantial persons why should 
one say "it is not mine to give," but that it is a jjrerogative of another 
person of the Trinity? Again: When Jesus said, "I ascend to my 



219 

Father and to your Father, to my God and your God," (John 20:17,) 
does that sound like Jesus is God? Can God go to God any more 
than He can — "if God is all, there is nothing for Him to enter" — 
"enter Himself," (59: 146, 152,) as Mrs. Eddy says; which would be 
like a stocking turning itself outside in, which • would be entering 
itself, would it not? And there is just as much sense in that as in 
Jesus, if he is God, to go to God. 

Again: If Jesus is God from eternity to eternity, He must now 
present a difPerent appearance to 'the angels of heaven than He did 
. before He came down from heaven and assumed a fleshy body, if the 
following is true: "The glorified body of our Lord is finite matter 
and will continue forever as finite matter." 98:35. If He is now in 
possession of a body of "finite matter," and the Father is a spirit 
without "glorified" flesh and bones, Jesus cannot then be the same as 
when He had a body the same as the Father now has, and in that 
case He would be changeable and be no longer of the same "substance 
and nature" as of the Father, would He? Another argument for the 
Deity of Jesus are "His miracles." 29:68. If miracles are proofs of 
a Deity then we have quite a list of Gods, according to the following: 
St. Scholastica calls up a rain to keep her brother St. Benedict over 
night at the convent. 43: 829, 330. "One of the most renowned 
miracles of St. Maurus is the one he wrought while yet a boy, when, 
through obedience, he walked u^jon the water as upon dry ground, 
in order to rescue St. Placidue from drowning." 43: 405. Of course, 
these miracles of these Saints are brought forward by the Church as a 
reason for asking their intercession, and of placing ourselves under 
their protection, thus making Gods galore. She says of the Saints 
in general, and of some in particular, this: "Beg him also for de- 
liverance from all dangers [Just like the Blessed Virgin] of body and 
soul," (43: 405,) while the "heretical" Apostles would not even pray 
to Jesus, but prayed to God alone, (Acts 4:29-30; 2 Cor. 1:3:4; Jude 
24:25, etc.) 

"St. Placidus * * * cured a blind man." * * * "St. 
Maurus * * * recalled to life one of his companions." * * * 
"The blessed medals of St. Benedict * * * may also be put into 
water, which men or even cattle may drink in order to be preserved 
from or cured of sickness." 43:608,609,632. How consistently and 
faithfully St. Benedictine institutions believe in the efficacy of the 
medal blessed in honor of their patron saint may be seen from the 



220 

following. "Well, there seem to be so many dying here. [Benedic- 
tine Convent. ] A death almost every letter. Sister Directress is very 
low. Has been for about a week. The doctor says she has bronchial 
troubles but we think she has consumption, too." (Extract of a let- 
ter.) 

Here is an extract from another letter written from another Ben- 
edictine Convent. "Mother Superior went to Hot Springs for a relief 
from rheumatism." 

Why do Benedictine priests who can make the "Celestial God" 
from the "slime of the earth," go to Europe, to Colorado, to the South- 
ern states and to other places for their health, if the "blessed medals 
of St. Benedict," if put into water, and the water is drank, will pre- 
serve and cure men or even cattle?" Have they too much sense to 
believe in things that are good only for their blind, credulous, and un- 
thinking followers, because they do not practice what they preach? 
One may say, with a priest, "Great God" do they believe their faith? 
If they do, why do they not, then, drink water, into which St. Bene- 
dictine's medal has been put, if it preserves from and cures sickness, 
and be thereby preserved from sickness? One time a number of men 
owned a steam threshing outfit, and the most of them being Catholics 
they put a blessed St. Benedict's medal on the engine, as a protection 
against mishaps. Well, in moving from one place to another a rather 
steep hill had to be climbed with the engine. The non-Catholic said 
the hill was too steep but the Catholics said they felt that they could 
make the hill without mishap, because the engine had a St. Benedict's 
medal on it. The Catholics being in the majority the order was given 
the engineer to climb the hill. When the engine started to climb the 
steep hill it reeled over, just like any engine of a "heretic" would have 
done on the same steep incline, and was damaged so they could not 
use it for a number of days. After the mishap occurred the non-Cath- 
olic said to the Catholics: "Now what did your G d d medal 

do?" Yes that is it, what do these "supernatural,' claims do, but to 
bring reproach on true religion, and to cause a general disbelief in 
anything that is not what is called "natural," or which may not be 
cognized by the five senses. The Catholic Church can always pro- 
duce testimonials of marvelous deeds done "supernaturally," but seems 
never to practive what she preaches, just like Dr. Dowie who claims 
to effect marvelous cures, yet he could not save the life of one whose 
head of hair caught fire and burned the person seriously, nor could he 



221 

heal a stenographer who became "very sick" while the Doctor was 
delivering his lecture, "Christian Science Exposed," an attempt to cast 
the mote out of Christian Science, while the beam of Dowieism would 
form a good theme for an "expose" for some opponent of the Doctor. 
"The reason why this discourse ["Christian Science Exposed"] is 
re-delivered, let me say at the outset, is because my stenographer 
became very sick on January 12th, when I delivered it in this place. 
He had to suspend writing about the middle of it." What a great 
opportunity the Doctor let pass by there, of demonstrating the 
superiority of his system of healing over that of the cult he was 
"exposing" at the time, if he had healed his "very sick" stenographer. 
But then it seems that, like the Catholic Church, the Christian 
Scientists, the Atheistic Evolutionists, the Doctor can find plenty to 
"bumfoozle." If the Doctor can effect such marvelous cures as he 
claims he can, why then, did he not heal the "very sick" stenographer 
who had to "suspend writing about the middle" of the Doctor's 
lecture ? That is the question I would have asked of the Doctor had 
I been present in that audience to which he made thati statement, 
about his "very sick" stenographer. 

We will now see some more of the miraculous things performed 
by others besides Jesus. "It is related in the Lives of the /Saints that 
St. Raimond, who always led an innocent life, walked dry shod over 
water." 7:301. Just as Jesus did. "During his stay at Rome Grod 
honored his ministry with so many illustrous miracles that Dominic 
acquired the name of Thanmaturgus. Among others, he recalled to 
life two persons." 5:828. "His [St. Martin] great faith and his 
ardent love made him equal to the Apostles in the performance of 
miracles; his first was the raising to life of a catechumen who had 
died without baptism." 5:918. Just as Jesus raised the dead to life. 
I will make a little digression here and will ask a question suggested 
by the miracle just mentioned. When the unbaptised person died 
where did that one's soul go? If it went to heaven how get around 
the doctrine that without Baptism one cannot enter heaven ? And if 
the soul went to hell, where it is believed all unbaptised go, then what 
becomes of the doctrine of an eternal hell out of which there is no 
redemption ? It will not do to say that the soul was in Purgatory, for 
in that case it would eventually get into heaven, which would break 
down the doctrine of Baptism as being necessary for one who wants 
to enter heaven. If it is said that, as he was a catechumen, he had 



desired baptism therefore received the baptism of desire, which is 
equal to a water baptism that cleanses from all sins, original and 
actual, committed before baptism, and that he was therefore in heaven 
then the question may be asked, can a saint on earth recall one from 
heaven against one's will? For who, when once in heaven, a place of 
"unspeakable happiness and numberless delights," would want to come 
back to this world of a "vale of tears?" 

Where then was the soul while absent from the body? We are 
taught that there are but three places to which the soul will go after 
death and these are Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. Now to which of 
these places did the soul go, which was recalled? I would like to see a 
theologian answer that qviestion, if he can without involving himself 
in difficulties. No doubt, the Protestant does not believe in this re- 
puted miracle of St. Martin, and if he does not, how can he believe 
the miracles of raising the dead as reported in the Old and New Tes- 
taments? By what rule of logic and process of reasoning can the 
Protestant believe the one and deny the other? The Protestant has 
no alternative but to believe this miracle of St. Martin, if he believes 
in the whole Bible as the inspired Word of God, or else reject all the 
miracle^ reported in the Bible. Which will he have, a Bible that is 
not all the inspired Word of God, or accept the reputed miracles of 
the Catholic Saints as true, in which, in the later case, he would be a 
hypocrite for believing in the miracles of the Catholic Church yet 
would not TDecome a member of her fold? "Even dead persons had 
been raised to life by him." 5:924. [St. Lawrence O'Toole.] It 
may seem then, that the argument from the miracles which Jesus per- 
formed, as a proof of His Diety, is untenable, because others have 
performed like miracles as unto His. In fact, if there is any trxith in 
what Jesus said then the performance of miracles is no sign of being 
a Deific person. "Amen, amen I say unto you, he that beliveth in me 
the works that I do, he also shall do." John 14:12. What works did 
Jesus have reference to but the miracles which he performed? And 
did not the Apostles perform like miracles as unto His, and did that 
make them Gods? Another argument for the Diety of Jesus is "His 
stupendous virtue," which none but God could have done * * * 
but still more, none but God would have done them as "He did 
them." 99:58. If His virtue was so "stupendous" which "none but 
God could have done," is it not then unreasonable to ask "creatures of 
dust," "miserable worms of the earth" to follow in His steps or to use 



223 

Him for a pattern after which to model their lives? Yet we are to do 
that, are we not? Another argument in support of the belief that 
Jesus is God is when He spoke as one with authority (99:94) saying: 
"It was said to them of old and I say unto you." Matt. 5:21-44. 
When Jesus said that did He not contradict what He — if He is God 
from eternity to eternity, and spoke to Moses the things which Moses 
commanded, — said once upon a time ? And if He did, is not God 
changeable then, because He requires a different standard of morals 
now from that which he required of primitive man? Or will you let 
down the bars for the admittance of the claims of the Evolutionists 
that man decended from an ape or some other animal, and at the dawn 
of man's reason and morality he was incapable of complying with the 
demands of a higher standard of morality, a standard which he is now 
with advancement from savagery to civilization and enlightenment, 
capable of complying with? Which horn of the delemma will you 
take? As for me, I deny the claims of the Evolutionists, that man 
descended from an animal, and I likewise deny the claims of theo- 
logians that God inspired the whole of the Bible. Therefore, when 
Jesus said: "You have heard it said to them of old," etc. He was 
only setting aside a human made code of morals, in general, just as 
one ignores the claims of the Catholic Church as being the "voice of 
God," when she introduces practice and doctrines about hosts of 
heaven, other than God, which I have mathematically proved are 
errors. And if the Church can err, which claims special protection 
or preservation from error, may not Moses have erred likewise, and 
"bumfoozled" the Israelites with his human made code of morals and 
practices as being the command of God. 

If I dethrone the Deity of Jesus do I thereby dethrone God's, as 
the author of "The Divinity of Jesus Christ" claims one must do if 
one dethrones the Deity of Jesus? I now come to the thought which 
came to me while reading John 1:1, which will dethrone the Deity of 
Jesus, yet does not dethrone God. It was in 1899, whilst I was read- 
ing the Bible, that when I read John 1:1 which says: "In the begin- 
ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
Gt)d," that the key to the solution of the difficulty was furnished. 
After I had read it once I said to myself, what sense is there in say- 
ing "the Word was with God," if the Word was God? It would be 
like saying, John was with Hunkey, and John was Hunkey. I then 
re-read it, trying at the same time to read, wliat is called "between 



224 

the lines," and in doing so I discerned the meaning of "the Word was 
with God," if the Word was God. It is like this: We will say that 
the Word of God is to God as my word— thought — is to me. It is 
God in the same sense that my word made material in this book is I. 
By reading this book you virtually read me, that is, my thought, 
character and sentiments. Now, the Word of God being made mani- 
fest — material — in the flesh — Jesus — just as this book is my word 
made manifest — material — does not change the nature and substance 
of God, just as my word having been made material — book — does not 
change my nature and substance. I am just the same person now in 
every way that I would be had I not proclaimed my thoughts to the 
world. Is that not so? The fact that my word has been made mater- 
ial- — book — does not withdraw any entity, nature or substance from 
me and make me less John Hunkey now than I was before I made my 
word material in this book, does it? Well, just so is it with God. 
His Word having been made flesh — Jesus — leaves God the same 
nature and substance. The Word is still with Him although made 
flesh, just as my word is still with me, although made material in this 
book. In the Word becoming flesh — Jesus — it does not mean that 
the word entered into the comx^osition of the flesh of Jesus, any more 
than my word entered into the material composition of paper, etc., of 
this book, but in his mental — mind — composition, just as my word 
enters the spirit of this book, if spirit it may be called. Do you see 
the point I am trying to make? If you do, then does it not seem 
plain to you why Jesus is not God, although being the fleshy mani- 
festation of the -Word, just as this book is not John Hunkey although 
the material manifestation of my word — thoughts and sentiments and 
characteristics? And new, if this book could speak it could say John 
Hunkey and I are one — in word, sentiment — when speaking of its 
spirit or contents, and John Hunkey is greater than I, when speaking 
of its substance or composition, material part. Just so was it when 
Jesus said: "The Father and I are one," that is one in Word. And 
when He said: "The Father is greater than I," was speaking of Him- 
self as a whole being or entity. And when it is said: "In Him 
dwelleth all the fullnes of the Godhead, corjDorally," (Col. 2:9,) it is 
the same as though one would say. In this book dwelleth all the full- 
ness of my head, materially, (Whether that be nothing but "jjre- 
sumptuous ignorance" or not.) With this solution of the subject it 
becomes clear why Jesus could say: "I am the living bread which 



225 

came down from heaven," (John 6:51,) meaning not His corporal 
body but His mind,mental entity, the Word incarnated, the Grospel. 
And that is where the error of the Catholic Church comes in, when 
she teaches the literal eating of the iiesh and blood of Jesus, as the 
way of putting on Christ, instead of imbibing — eating — His words, 
just as one must read — eat — the contents of this book, and not the 
literal eating of its leaves and cover, if one wants to know its sjjirit, 
word, contents, and wants to assimilate its mental substance. Is not 
all that I have said then, plain and comprehensible and no longer 
carries with it a "mystery" when dealing with the subjects of the 
Trinity, (Which is now seen to be an error) and the doctrine that 
Jesus is God (Which is likewise now seen to be an error?) One can 
now understand why St. Peter and the other Apostles never prayed to 
Jesus, and why they sj^oke of Jesus .as the "man Christ- Jesus," 
(1 Tim. 2:5,) "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among 
you," (Acts 2:22,) etc. 

Now that I have shown why Jesus is not God, but the fleshy, 
mental manifestation of the Word — Christ — of God which was always 
with God, just as my word is with me, does that dethrone God? Now 
that the Deity of Jesus has been dethroned it does not dethrone His 
Divinity. Do you see the difference now between the Deity and 
Divinity of Jesus? Jesus is Divine in that He is the fleshy — mental 
— manifestation of the Word, Logos, Christ of God, just like this 
book is the material manifestation cff my mental entity, and He is not 
the manifestation of the whole being of God, just as this book is not 
the whole of me, or John Hunkey whole and entire. 

And now that Jesus is not God is the apiDellation "Mother of 
God" not a misnomer? She is not even the mother of Christ, just as 
my mother is not the mother of my thoughts, but she is only the 
mother of Jesus, just as my mother is the mother of my fleshy entity 
or body. Nestorius has then been finally vindicated, nearly fifteen 
hundred years after he was condemned as a heretic, for his contention 
that the Blessed Virgin was not and could not be the Mother of God. 
Has he not. I hope it will not be fifteen hundred years, after I have 
passed on, before anyone will vindicate my position on religious mat- 
tars as outlined in this book. 

Are not the Unitarians now nearer right, in denying a triune 
God of three co-equal, co-eternal and con-substantial persons, than 
are the Trinitarian Christians with their erroneous, nonsensical, 



226 

incomprehensible "mystery" triune God of three co-equal, co-etemal 
and con-substantial persons? I hape then that that doctrine will be 
relegated to the museum of incomprehensible "myths" — errors. It 
does not help a person, in the desire to lead a Christian life, to fill 
one's mind with anything that one cannot understand — because errors 
never can be understood — and the less of that the better for Christian- 
ity in general. It will also remove pretexts for infidels to harp on. 
For as it is now they will continue to ridicule it by saying that "if we 
had been born in India, we would have believed in a god with three 
heads. Now we believe in three gods with one head." 42:278. 

Do not think for a moment that I came to the convictions and 
and conclusions to which I did, without much mental perturbation, 
or, as the Christian Scientists call it "chemicalization" of mind. 
Many a time I would exclaim, "O Grod, reveal to me the truth!", when 
those thoughts came up which ran counter to the current of general 
belief. But my reason and intellect finally assured me that my con- 
clusions and convictions are the truth, and for that reason do I make 
the attempt to proclaim them to the world. For were it not my firm 
conviction that I am right I would not take the step that I have, be- 
cause I do not want to do anything that is not right, and which might 
scandalize any so much as to cause them to lose their right to eternal 
life. Bnt believing that I am right, and that it is necessary to pro- 
claim the thoughts which have come to me in order to accomplish 
my object, that of Christian Unit/, I am constrained to pursue the 
course which I am doing even though it may cause a shock to the 
minds of many. 

The next subjects which we will consider together will be Origi- 
nal Sin and Baptism, for they are inter-related to each other aboutjas 
closely as any two subjects which have been considered together 
so far. 



CHAPTER X. 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 

The doctrine of Original Sin seems to rest on the following text: 
26:66. "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death : 
and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." Rom. 
5:12. "What do we call the sin in which we are all born? We call 
it Original Sin; for although we have not committed it ourselves, we 
have inherited it from our first parents." 29:66. Now that might 
have been the case before the time of Jesus but it cannot be the case 
now according to the following texts: "As by the disobedience of 
one man, many [does not say all] were made sinners: so also by the 
obedience of one, many shall be made just." Rom. 5:19. Now, why 
should not the obedience of Jesus outweigh the disobedience of 
Adam? Is evil more powerful than good? Does any one suppose 
that God woiild change the laws of the universe, on account of one 
sin: so that now all must die, while if it had not been for that sin all 
would have lived forever? The claim that death entered the world as 
a result of one man's sin is a false one. Even theologians are begin- 
ning to admit it. Here is what one of them has to say on the subject. 
"All the analogies of the human constitution, and, we may add, all the 
experiences of human existence, go to show the essential or native 
mortality of man. [Which is true if "flesh and blood cannot possess 
the kingdom of God."] 1 Cor. 15:50. Death is commonly regarded 
as a penalty of sin, * * * Poets and even the Scriptures have 
adduced as authority for the belief that the transgression of Adam 
and Eve in the Garden of Eden was the cause of mortality as a divine 
infliction upon all their posterity; but scientifically speaking this is 
certainly erronious. That act was not followed by immediate physical 
death, even in the case of our first parents; and there is geological 
proof of the most irrefragable kind that the lowers of animal at least 
perished by hecatombs from the earliest period of animated liistory. 
* * * That Adam was by nature capable of i)ain, and consequently 
of disease and even of dissolution, is too palpable to be denied." 
100:25-26. Of course, this is admitted, but it is claimed that "suffer- 
ing and death in the animal world before man is anticipatory, but not 



226 

the less the consequence of man's sin." 101:747. Think of a God, 
who on account of a man committing a sin in the future, punishes for 
ages [and Catholic scientists now admit that animal life existed in this 
world ages before the advent of man — 102:54] innocent animals, in 
anticipation of a man sinning! A God who would do such a reijrehen- 
sible thing ought to be hated and despised, as the Atheists and Infi- 
dels, apparently, do hate the orthodox God of the theologians. But 
before you have finished reading this book I hope you will have a 
nobler conception of God than is that of the theologians of him. I 
will attempt to prove to you that the suflFering, misery, and woe in the 
world is not due to the sin of any one person, nor is it the work of a 
diabolical mythical fiend, called the Devil. Either of those causes 
would impeach the power, goodness, mercy and providence of God. 
The laws of nature — which are God's laws — are the same- now that 
they were from the beginning, and they were never changed so as to 
cause suffering to animals and to man, on account of a sin committed 
by our supposedly first parents. If Original Sin is the cause of our 
"inclination to evil," (5:123,) how, then, account for one man delight- 
ing in the odors and taste of intoxicating liquors so that he will enter 
a saloon and drink to excess while another turns away from it with dis- 
gust and nausea. Or is drunkenness no evil and causes no misery? 

Now, if the inclination to drunkenness is due to Original Sin 
where is that inclination during the interval between infancy and 
maturity? What is it that bridges it over that interval if the inclina- 
tion to the drink evil is the result of Original Sin? Why has not the 
total abstainer then an inclination to the drink evil? Is he not like- 
wise a descendant from the same primitive couple that the drunkard 
is? I know of total absiainers to whom the odor of a saloon is sick- 
ening, loathsome and repelling. How will Original Sin account for 
such diametrically opposed to each other desires or inclinations? 
Original Sin cannot account for it, for the simple reason that the 
mythological Sin has nothing to do with inclinations. It is what a 
man sows that he shall also reap, and his acquired appetites, passions, 
virtues are transmitted to his oflPspring and causes inclinations in 
them like unto that which was pronounced in the parent. Read 
"Heredity and Christian Problems," by Amory H. Bradford, make 
observations based on the reading of that book, and it may be seen 
that Original Sin has nothing to do with our inclinations, be they evil 
or good. If our inclinations to evil are due to the curse of Original 



227 

Sin, why, then, is that inclination not removed by Jesus if the curse 
"was really banished by Him on the Cross?" 43:603. Or is it only 
some more "verbiage" to be told that Jesus, on the Cross, "really ban- 
ished the curse entailed on mankind by the sins of our first parents, 
and propogated to all human beings ( 'Christ and the Blessed Virgin 
excepted,') (yet 'God is no respecter of persons'] * * * 'over the 
earth?' " It looks a little like it, does it not, that it is only "verbiage," 
if we are still cursed with Original Sin, and the curse was "really 
banished" by Jesus "on the Cross?" 

Again, if Baptism cleanses "from all sin" and regenerates, (29: 
137,) and "removes original and actual sin, causing man to be spiritu- 
ally born again, made a new creature, a child of Grod, and joint heir 
with Christ," (5:403,) and "each individual soul, according to Catholic 
teaching, is created directly and absolutely by God himself," (103:29,) 
then how can children "come into the world already sullied with sin 
and as enemies to God," (5:867,) if their parents were baptized, and 
Baptism regenerated them and made them children of God, and joint 
heirs with Christ, and if like begets like, and from nothing nothing 
comes, without the intervention of God? Is it not an axiom that 
from nothing, nothing comes, without the intervention of God, and 
like begets like? Does God then deliberately create a soul for hell? 
If an unbaptized infant "a day old (31:305) is an enemy of God, would 
it not virtually be created for hell if its parents were unbelievers and 
would let it die, when a day old, without Baptism ? The Catholic 
Church is not the only blasphemer, on the subject of Original Sin. 
"John Calvin, who made hell-fire practical in the burning of Servetus, 
tells us that: 'Children bring their condemnation with them from 
their mother's womb, being liable to punishment, not for the sin of 
another, but for their own; for although they have not yet produced 
the fruits of their iniquity, they have the seed inclosed in themselves; 
[How, if the parents were children of God, and like begets like?] nay, 
their whole nature is, as it were, a seed of sin; therefore it cannot but 
be odious and abominable to God.' " 10:9. 

You mothers, with a little dimpled darling nestling in your arms, 
look upon the sweet, smiling, cooing, angelic being, and if it has not 
had a little water poured on it by one who always expects an honorar- 
ium for doing so, say to yourselves, "How odious and abominable you 
are to the good, kind, loving, merciful and benevolent God of the Cal- 
vinist, and what an enemy to the same God of the Catholics." Yes, 



228 

and I know of cases where priests refused to baptize infants whose 
parents were believed to not have contributed sufficiently towards 
maintaining the Church. If the child had died then, then it would 
have certainly gone to hell, for if it is an enemy of God it certainly 
could not go to heaven where God is. And here priests were willing 
to take those chances with the destiny of an innocent child, who 
could not help that its parents were not the best of Catholics. It is 
because of instances of that kind, and other whips which the Church 
uses on her members, who, she says, "Should have all the simplicity, 
all the credulity of a child, (31:99.) and that it does not seem to be a 
"very serious charge" if "her people are slightly more credulous than 
others," (45:273,) that she manages to keep the faithful under her 
control. It is a mechanical, and not a spontaneous, Christianity, 
which must have recourse to such methods to keep the faithful in 
line. But what else can ' be expected of a Church that is so full of 
errors as I have shown her to be. No doubt she will cry "heretic" to 
me when I say that Original Sin is a blasphemous myth, and that 
Baptism is nothing, and un-Baptism is nothing; but the observation 
of the commandments of God, just as, no doubt, the orthodox Jewish 
priests said of St Paul when he said: "Circumcision is nothing, and 
uncircumcision is nothing: but the observation of the commandments 
of God," (1 Cor. 7:9," which is directly antagonistic to the supposed 
covenant God made to Abraham in Gen. 17:9-13, which is just as 
much a "warrant of scripture" for circumcision to be perpetual as is 
Mark 16:16 for Baptism a "warrant of scripture," about which a mar- 
ginal note to the "Standard Edition" of the Bible, of 1901, says: 
"The two oldest Greek manuscripts and some other authorities, omit 
from verse 9 to the end. Some other authorities have a different end- 
ing to the Gospel." Mark, page 55. 

Let us ask a question here. If Jewish women could please God 
without being mutilated, then why could not the men do the same ? 
Does not the Bible hold women in greater degradation than it does 
men? If not, then why is a woman twice as long unclean when she 
gives birth to a "maid-child" than when she gives birth to a "man- 
child?" Lev. 12:2-5. And if she is more a degraded being than man, 
then why should the less degraded not be mutilated and the greater 
be, in order to be made fit beings to do that which is pleasing to God? 
The sum and substsnce of it is that circumcision is nothing, just as 
St. Paul said it was, and Baptism is likewise nothing but an initiatory 



229 

rite, just as riding the goat is with some secret societies, and effects 
neither one way or the other the nature of the soul, nor God's atti- 
tude towards it. 

The Church bases its doctrine of Baptism, for the regeneration 
of the soul, on John 3:5. 30:248. But let us look at the marks by 
which the real regeneration takes place. It says: "The Spirit 
breatheth where He will; and thou hearest His voice, but thou 
knowest not whence He cometh, [Oh, yes, he comes out of the Holy 
Water on which the priest, on Holy Saturday, "breathes thrice * * * 
in the form of a cross" (69:489,) and out of the "Oil of the Cate- 
chumens," which is saluted thrice with "Hail! Holy Oil." 69:558.] 
and whither He goeth: so is every one bom of the Spirit." John 8:8. 
Does any one believe that a ten day old infant has heard "his voice?" 
If not, then it is not "bom again," "regenerated," is it? Is being 
"born again" of the same meaning as being baptized? If so, could 
not Jesus as easily have said, "Unless you be baptized in water and 
the Holy Ghost you cannot enter the kingdom of God," as for Him to 
say "bom again?" Then there would not be these quibblings and 
wrangling and hair splitting controversies of what God wanted us to 
do. "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Luke 
3:16. If "bom again of water and the Holy Ghost" is to be taken 
literally then why not "Holy Ghost aiid with fire?" Did you ever 
hear of any one being baptized "with fire," unless it w&s Servetus by 
John Calvin, and John Huss by the Roman Catholic hierarchy? I 
do not suppose many would want to be baptized that way. The 
Church cannot say that baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire 
means confirmation, for it says "Holy Ghost" which is as distinct 
from "with fire" as it is with "water." Buried with him [Christ J in 
bajjtism," (Col. 2:12,) if a text which furnishes "warrant of scripture" 
for the complete immersion practiced by the Mormon Church, if an 
Elder of that Church is a correct mouth-piece. 77:17. But the Mor- 
mon Church is near Scriptural in regard to the administration of 
Baptism than is the Catholic Church. "And after this manner did 
the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me; whereupon ray 
beloved son, I know it is solemn mockery before God, that ye should 
baptize little children," because "little children are whole, for they 
are not capable of committing sin.', 104:480 Moroui. Is not that 
more reasonable and less blasphemous than is the teachings of John 
Calvin and of the Catholic Church? Even Dr. Dowie, who is a little 



230 

daft on the subject of a personal devil, is more Scriptural in his 
teachings regarding Baptism than is the Catholic Church. He asks 
the question : "Who should be baptized ? Certainly not babies, and 
therefore only those who repent and those who believe. Let me 
guard here against a mistake that might be indulged in by some. The 
question is asked: Is a person not saved who is not baptized? I reply 
unhesitatingly — salvation does not depend on Baptism ; but true Bap- 
tism depends upon salvation. * * * i tell you, if a man repents 
and trusts God, he will get to heaven without either Baptism or the 
Lord's Supper, because a man is saved, not by these ordinances, but 
he is saved by repentance toward God, and by faith in our Lord Jesus 
Christ." 97:19. Now that is sensible and reasonable, is it not? But 
such teachings as that of Calvin and of the Catholic Church degrades, 
calumniates and blasphemes God. 

Supposing a mother, just a short time before she should be deliv- 
ered, is killed by accident, as is the case sometimes, why, in such . 
case, if the teaching of the Church is true, that "original sin is in all 
of us, even from the day of our conception," (52:4.) the unborn or 
still-born child could not enter heaven, and as there will be only 
heaven and hell after the general judgment (65:111) it would have to 
go to an endless hell, and be tormented with unspeakable suffering, 
all on account of Adam's sin, and for the want of a little Holy Water 
and "Hail! Holy Oil" put on the body of the child. Well, I am glad 
that the teachings of the Church on Original Sin and Baptism is only 
some more "verbiage," put forward in order to display some of her 
"wisdom and learning of eighteen hundred years." 

Believing I have for the present said enough on the theme under 
consideration, I will pass on to the next subject, the Devil, who is as 
great a myth as was ever concocted in the imagination of man. The 
thought just now came to me that I ought to corne to the assistance of 
the Church in the struggle that she has to get non-Catholics to believ 
in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, the feast of 
which was already celebrated in the Church as early as December 8, 
1854, which you see makes it "a thing which the Apostles themselves 
believed and preached" (45:60) — which are plain facts for fair minds 
— when Pope Pius IX. "solemnly" announced "the dogma of the Im- 
maculate Conception," 5:634. From the arguments presented in this 
chapter, you can not now, if you are a non-Catholic, believe that the 
Blessed Virgin was conceived without Original Sin? If not, then 



231 

may God have pity on your dull intellectual faculty of the understand- 
ing, for I do not see how I could present stronger arguments than are 
presented in this chapter for the belief in the Immaculate conception 
of the Blessed Virgin, whom Joseph knew after she had "brought 
forth her first-born son," (Matt. 1:25,) and who had other sons andl 
daughters. Mark 6:3. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE DEVIL. 

What an important part in the drama of the world this myth of 
the devil has played, if all was true what is said of the devil by theo- 
logians. If the devil were a reality, a personal being, "whose envy 
has been the cause of all our woes," (41:108,) it would impeach the 
power, or else the benevolence of God. Who among you, who pos- 
sessed the least grain of common sense, would not, if you had the 
power, and has Grod not the power, kill the wolf that was always 
wounding and killing your lambs and sheep, if you had a flock '^* such 
and they were constantly maimed, killed and exposed to the danger 
from such a wolf? Would you pay no attention towards trying to 
remove the cause, and would only confine yourself to the bandaging 
and nursing of your flock which was, at the will of the wolf, wounded 
tind killed? If you could remove the wolf, just as Grod could the 
devil, were there a devil, and you did not do it, would it not be likely 
that you would be regarded as an idiotic, senseless, weak and simple- 
minded fool? And is Grod such a Being as that, because He lets the 
devil go about like a "roaring lion seeking whom he may devour," (I. 
Pet. 5:8,) when, if He had the power, — He would destroy him or else 
keep him "under darkness in everlasting chains" ( Jude 6) so he could 
not devour His children ? Is that not a flat contradiction to say that 
the devil is "reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the 
judgment of the great day" (Jude 6) [which is supposed to be the 
Resurrection and general jvidgment day] and that the devil, as a roar- 
ing lion, goeth about, seeking wliojn he may devour?" I. J et. 5:8. 
How can the devil be chained down in hell and at the same time go 
about "as a roaring lion." 

Did you ever see a lion chained in his cage, in a circus parade, 
and at the same time the same lion going about among the spectators 
devouring the truant school boys? It seems the Bible can give us 
"verbiage" to "admire" as well as the theologians can. And is that 
not "verbiage" which flatly contradicts itself? The question may be 
asked, Who is the devil? "Oh," you will say, "he is a fallen angel." 
What caused him to fall? "Oh," you will say, "pride." How did 



233 

pride tempt him [LiiciferJ if he was the first devil, and it takes a devi^ 
to tempt one to commit sin. Yes, that is the question: What devil 
tempted the first devil? Will some Vicar of Christ, with an "eagle 
eye," or some other theologian, tell vis what devil tempted Lucifer, if 
Lucifer was the first devil to rebel against Grod, and it was a devil who 
caused the first sin committed by man in the world? If then angels 
who "arepvire," where "no stain is found upon them,— no evil desires 
ever awaken improper energies within them" (105:52-53); who are 
"among all creatures those which seem to reach nearest to the Divine 
Majesty" in "beautiful intelligence" (12:44); who are "masterpieces 
of the Divine Omnipotence, adorned with all the gifts of nature and 
of grace," who committed "the first sin ever committed," (7:73:74,) 
could sin without a detil to tempt them, — Lucifer being once an angel, 
— then, could not man, who was made "less than the angels," (Ps. 8:6,) 
likewise sin without a personal devil to tempt him? Probably you 
will ask, then. What is it that tempts man to sin if it is not the devil? 
But what temj^ted Lucifer to sin if he was the first devil? Can you 
answer that? 

I will tell you what temj)ts man. It is "his own concupiscence." 
James 1:14. What does concupiscence mean? It is because of a 
wrong interpretation of the meaning of that word that has led to the 
belief that it means a "corrupt nature" inherited from the sin of Adam 
and Eve, or, in other words. Original Sin. But concupisence does 
not mean literally a "corrupt nature," but it means our passions, 
appetites and emotions. Now the question is. Who is the author of 
our passions, appetites and emotions ? Supposing that the emotion 
of love did not inhere, by nature, in the human breast, do you sup- 
pose tlien that a man would be attracted to a woman or that a woman 
would receive the attentions of a man? And if a man would not, by 
the awakening of the emotion of love, be attracted to a certain woman 
by a longing and yearning for her would he ever ask her whether she 
thought him worthy enough to go through life with her, hand in 
hand, as her companion, to share her joys and her sorrows with her? 
And if not, how would there be any marrying, and if no marrying how 
would the human race be perpetuated? And after there is a marriage 
there should be no maternal instinct, and with no maternal instinct, 
how would there be any offspring? And how would there be offspring 
if there were no procreative passion? And how is the procreative 
passion to be excited without thought or ijropinquity, so it can 



234 

comply with Gen. 1 :28? Is it not plain enough, without my telling you, 
who is the author of our emotions, our instincts and our passions? 
And are not those feelings shared, in a more or less degree, by ani- 
mals? Has the devil anything to do with the perpetuation of species? 
Well, so much for those feelings. 

Let us now look at another passion, that of pride, which the 
Church places at the head of the list of the seven "Capital Sins." 
29:122. Will it be said that it is not a necessary passion? Gro into 
the house where the inmates have nearly lost all pride and you may 
see the effects of the loss of pride. There is filth, disorder, untidi- 
ness, laziness, etc., to be found. Is that not so? a. f. y. Or take a 
person who has lost nearly all pride, or self-esteem, and that person 
will be too lazy to properly clean and tidf one's self, and will go 
about with partly unkempt hair, with dirty, greasy clothes, with an 
odor about one that smells of a tobacco spittoon or old cob-pipe, with 
a breath like a barrel-house saloon odor, etc., environments that will 
almost invariably destroy the tender emotion of love, if persons of 
that kind are married. A man likes to see his wife neat and tidy and 
clean whenever it is possible for her to be so, and she will find it to 
be the more possible, the more pride she has. And I suppose a 
woman likes her husband to be the same, for I do not believe that a 
tender, refined and gentle being, such as a true woman is, can have 
any pleasure in the caresses and "Shrewsbiiry Clock" kisses of a 
husband whose breath smells like a whiskey jug, beer faucet, wine 
bottle, stinking old cob-pipe or a tobacco spittoon. That there are 
men with such breaths and odors about them I know to be a fact, for 
oftentimes have I stood leaning against a telegraph pole oi wall of a 
building when men would come to me and would talk to me, whose 
breath and odor was so strong, as described above, that I suddenly 
found an excuse to "hobble" around the block for exercise, in order to 
get out of range of those sickening odors of the "gentlemen." Yes, 
and pride has kept many a one from falling into vice and crime. It 
may be seen then that pride is a necessary passion, also. 

The same it is with anger. If one had not the passion of anger, 
lying dormant in one to be aroused into just indignation, do you sup- 
pose any one would ever raise a voice against the oppressions of the 
oppressors, if one's blood did not boil with indignation at the wrongs 
done the weak by the strong? One can "be angry, and sin not," (Eph. 
4:26,) can one not? If one can. then, cannot one have pride and sin 



235 

too? Can one not have the emotion of love awakened, and the pro- 
creative passicn excited, and sin not, as well as the other passions and 
sin not? Yet all these things can be used so that they are sinful. 
But when are they sinful? It is when we pervet the proper and law- 
ful use of them. We were endowed with a reason and free will, and 
it depends on the choice we make, of how we use our emotions, appe- 
tites and passions, which makes it sinful or not to indulge them. 
Therefore, it is, or is it not, an error to believe that the devil is 
"armed with the evil desires of men, with the perishable riches, 
honors, and pleasures of this world, with which he entices us to evil," 
(5-202,) when all those passions inhere in us and impel us to strive 
after their gratification, just as an engine with a sufficient pressure of 
steam will turn the wheel when the engineer pulls the throttle? Our 
emotions, appetites and passions may be compared to the steam in 
the engine which is always ready to act as soon as we pull the throt- 
tle, that is, arouse them. And the engineer may be compared to our 
reason and free will, which holds in control the impelling forces in 
us, just as the engineer does the steam in the engine. The engineer 
can use the throttle in such a way as to cause the engine to create 
havoc and damage, or to perform necessary good work with the pres- 
sure of the steam that is in the engine, just as one can use the throttle 
of reason and free will in such a way that the impelling forces inher- 
ing in one may rush one to inevitable wrong and destruction, or to 
the performance of acts that are necessary and good for the sustenance 
and propogation of the human race. Is that not so? And when one 
dethrones one's reason, it is as though one were to throw away the 
reins of a fiery steed one should be riding. Just so is it with our 
feelings, the impelling forces within us. They are always ready to be 
perverted to wrong uses when we let them rule us instead of us ruling 
them, that is. by not holding to the reins, exercising our reason and 
free will properly. And it does not require a devil to dethrone our 
reason or to arouse and excite latent feelings in us. Of this fact I am 
very certain, for I had an experience which convinced me of that. 
And ever since that experience, which was in the autumn of 1900, I 
was satisfied that there is no such a thing as a personal devil who 
tempts us. The experience which I had, although of little signifi- 
cance in itself, started me to analyzing and to reflecting on the source 
of what causes us what are called temptations, and it was this: 

One day, shortly after I began going out, after my confinement in 



236 

the house for some time, I passed by a fruit stand where they also 
sold soda water, and while I was talking to the proprietor a boy came 
along and called for a drink of soda. He was handed a bottle, and the 
contents of it looked like a soda beverage I used to drink regularly 
the last year that I was in the store, on account of it being recom- 
mended as a drink that was invigorating, and of which I was very 
fond. When he began drinking it I looked at him, and it aroused in 
me the temptation to want a drink of it also. Well, I asked if they 
had the kind which I wanted, and which looked like that which the 
boy drank, and not having it I ordered one like that which the boy 
had ordered, and I drank it. The day before I had passed by the 
same stand and saw the bottles, but was not tempted, but when I, the 
next day, saw the boy drinking I was tempted so that I bought and 
drank. Now, I ask, did the devil arouse my appetite for a glass of 
soda? 

Is it a sin to drink a glass of soda? If a child passes by a 
fruit stand and sees fruit which it likes to eat, and it will not rest 
until it is given some fruit, did the devil have anything to do with 
that? Well, then, when a drinker passes by a saloon and the odor 
from it arouses in him a desire to drink is that the work of the devil? 
If a libertine sees a lewd woman is his desire for lasting after her the 
work of the devil, any more than it was the work of the devil which 
tempted me to drink a glass of soda water, or tempted the child with 
fruit? Is it the work of the devil that one has recurring thoughts of 
a loved one whom one has lost and the thought causes renewed pains 
of a broken heart. Is it the work of the devil when one is bereaved, 
-and one has recurring thoughts of that bereavement which causes 
grief and makes one say a prayer for the repose of the soul of the 
departed person ? From whence are those suggestions which arouse 
in us the different states of feeling which we experience? Has the 
devil anything to do with the thoughts and suggestions which come 
to a person, and which one can alternately change every moment of 
time if one choses to? Can you not one minute think of the most 
noble, pure and kind things, and the next minute think of the worst 
kind of low, mean, impure, envious and hateful things, and the suc- 
ceeding minute think again of what is good and noble? If you can, 
has the devil anything to do with that? Are not those things in our 
control just as the steam in the engine is in the control of the engi- 
neer? And are not our so-called concupiscences the impelling forces 



237 

within us, just as the steam in the engine is the propelling force 
within the engine ? Take the steam out of the engine and what would 
the engine be worth? Take the impelling forces of the emotions, pas- 
sions and appetites out of a person and what would that person be? 
Why, like the steamless engine, it would be dead. And if we do not 
govern and control them with reason they will impel us to do that 
which is wrong and unlawful, just as the engine not governed prop- 
erly will cause havoc and destruction. 

Do you now see whence are the suggestions that come to one? 
Are not the impressions that are made the deepest on one's conscious- 
ness the Jones that recur the most frequently, be they good or bad, 
and if one will allow it they will alternate almost with a certain regu- 
larity? Now, do the good angels and the devils play a see-saw game 
with us all the time? Do the good angels one minute give us good 
thoughts and suggestions, then make room for the devils for the next 
minute, then they withdraw and give the good angels place again? 
Do you see now how it is possible for one to sin without a devil, and 
that the existence of evil is no longer an impeacliment of the power 
and benevolence of Grod? Grod has made us with the necessary feel- 
ings in us for the preservation and the perpetuation of the human 
race, and He has endowed us with reason, power and free will, and it 
depends on how we exercise and use them, which makes our deeds 
good or bad. And as God governs by law, He has enacted them with 
penalties for their violations, and when we violate them we bring suf- 
fering on ourselves and on our own, and it cannot then be said that 
He wills or sends it any more than a violator of a law of the land, who 
is punished for the same, can say that the author of the law which he 
violated willed or sent him the punishment which he incurred for 
violating his law. And not alone in the moral realm, but also in the 
physical, God governs by law and if one violates a physical law of 
God one will suffer from a sickness or a disease, be that violation of 
law also a violation of a moral law or not. For instance, a boy goes 
into his father's orchard and finds a lot of green apples on the ground, 
blown off the tree by a storm, eats enough of them to give him cholera 
morbus, just the same as though he had stolen the apples off a tree of 
his neighbor. Therefore, when Dr. Dowie says that "every kind of 
sickness, and every kind of disease * * * is the work of the devil," 
and that there would not have been "any sin in this world had there 
been no devil," he is off his base, even if he has "warrant of Scripture" 



238 

for such beliefs. If there would not have been "any sin in this 
world had there been no devil," then, how is it that there was sin in 
heaven when there was as yet no devil? But where does it say that 
there was sin and a real war in a literal heaven? "Oh," but it will be 
said that the "12th chapter of the Apocalypse tells us that there was a 
war in heaven." Yes, but when did this suijposed war take i^lace? It 
says: "And they [Michael and his angels] overcame him [the devil] 
by the blood of the lamb." Apoc. Rev. 12:11. Now, what "blood "of 
the Lamb" \yas it that is spoken of there? Was it the blood of Jesus? 
If so, then it must have been spilled before ever Adam and Eve 
sinned, if their sin was due to the envy of that devil who was over- 
come by the "blood of the Lamb," and if so, where did Jesus get the 
blood to spill before he became man, and God has not flesh and bones? 
Is the 12th chapter of the Apocalypse to be taken literally any more 
than is the 4th chapter and verses 6-7 of the same book, where it 
speaks of "four living creatures" "round about the throne" of God in 
heaven, who were like a lion, a calf, the face of a man, and an eagle 
flying?" How would you like to have those "four living creatures" 
carry your prayers in "golden vials" (Apoc. 5:8) before the Lamb? 
Yet in that the Church sees a "warrant of Scripture" for the belief 
that the "Saints in heaven offer up to Christ the prayers of the faith- 
ful on earth." (Foot note.) If any of the Apocalypse is to be taken 
literally then this must also be taken literally, "The beast, [the devil] 
which thou sawest, was and is not, and shall come up out of the bot- 
tomless pit, and go into destruction : and the inhabitants on the earth 
(whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation 
of the world [this sounds like predestination]) shall wonder, seeing 
the beast that was, and is not." Apoc. 17:8. 

Indeed, have the inhabitants on the earth wondered at the devil 
"that was" in the imagination of theologians, "and is not." These 
theologians attempt to interpret books of the Bible that have as "many 
mysteries as words, or rather mysteries in every word." (Foot note 
end of Apoc.) That would be like a person getting a Chinese letter, 
and taking it to some person in authority full of "wisdom and learn- 
ing," who should tell one that though he did not understand the 
Chinese language, because there are "mysteries in every word," yet he 
would interpret it for one, and if one did not believe his interpreta- 
tion one should be sent to prison — Hell. 

And what a wonderful being this devil of the theologians must 



239 

be. He was to have his head crushed by "the woman," (41:158,) the 
Blessed Virgin, for there is in my room, at this writing, a "Lady of 
Victory," picture in which she is resting her right foot on a serpent's 
head, and by Jesus the "seed of woman of whom it had been promised 
ever since the fall of man that he should bruise the serpent's head," 
(37:198,) yet both have come and have gone and instead of the devil 
being crushed or killed we are now told that Jesus "could not alter 
the nature of Satan, the declared enemy of mankind," and that "if 
anything, the warfare is now more open, active and hostile" (55:Dec. 
4, — ,) than at the time of Job. In the name of common sense what 
is that but "verbiage?" In one breath we are told the devil's head is 
to be crushed by Jesus, and in the next breath that "He could not 
alter the nature of Satan" and, if anything, his warfare is now "more 
open, active and hostile" than at the time of Job. 

The devil must have the lives of the proverbial cat — with nine 
lives — if he has had his head crushed by the Blessed Virgin and by 
Jesus, and he is now more active and hostile than ever. If you had 
your head crushed so that the "wisdom and learning of eighteen cen- 
turies," and your "j)resumptuous ignorance" made a grease spot on 
the ground would not your nature be changed then? If not, what 
right then have persons to sue individuals and corporations for dam- 
ages when relatives of theirs had the head crushed, and it makes them 
"more active" than ever? If the crushiiig of the heads would make 
people "more active" than ever, then it would be a good idea to run 
some of our men, whose wives and daughters support them, through 
a rolling mill. I believe after such men went through a rolling mill 
once, where their heads would be crushed, their nature would be 
changed, would it not? Yet here is the devil, of the theologians and 
the Bible, with his head crushed, and he is "more open, active and 
hostile" than ever. If that is true, then let us pray to God to send 
no more devil's head crushers, for the more his head would be 
crushed the "more active" would he become, and I believe he is quite 
active now, as it is, if Dr. Dowie, the Catholic Church, et al, are to be 
believed. 

If it is true that the devil is the "declared enemy of mankind," 
why would it not be a good idea to go a gunning for him, by praying 
to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, who seem to have so much "in- 
fluence" with Grod, to have Him destroy the devil, like we would do 
with an enemy of ours, who would annoy us, if we had the ijower to 



240 

destroy the enemy, and does any one question that God has not the 
power to destroy the devil, or else put him in the- "bottomless pit" 
and chain him down with "everlasting chains," ( Jude 6,) as he already 
is chained down, if the Bible is to be believed, — with one eye closed? 
[That is like "Jesus holding His own body in His own hands at the 
Last Supper," (13:66,) or like God entering Himself, because "God 
is all, there is nothing for Him to enter but .Himself," (59:146, 152,) 
which is like a stocking turning itself outside in would be "entering" 
itself, would it not?] 

Supposing all of us turn our attention towards seeking to destroy 
or remove the cause of all our "sickness and diseases," and "of all our 
woes." Would that not be more sensible than not to pay any atten- 
tion to the cause and always directing our attention and time to the 
bandaging and the nursing of the wounded and dying? Suppase we 
iise a little of the common sense we exercise in temporal matters and 
apply it to spiritual matters, and ask God to remove the cause — the 
devil — if he is the cause of the evils of this world? What human 
father, who loves his children as we are taught to believe God loves 
us, would not remove a dog that was always biting and lacerating his 
children, even without being petitioned to do so, if he had the power 
to remove the dog? Is God so powerless that the devil can make a 
fool of Him? Where is God's benevolence if He lets the devil loose 
among His children to destroy and ruin them, if He fore-knows all 
things and knew that His children would fall to the wiles of an 
envious devil? What would you think of a human father who would 
let a bear or lion loose among his children to ruin and devour them ? 
And did not God know, if He fore-knows all things, that the devil 
would ruin His children if let loose among them? I say that the doc- 
trine of the devil, as promulgated by theologians, and taught by the 
Bible, is an infernal, damnable, blashemous lie. It makes of God a 
senseless, idiotic fool, and impeaches His power and benevolence, and 
is one of the principal causes for the rapid growth of Atheism and 
Infidelity. The following is a very poor argument for the existence 
of a devil, when we take into consideration the fact [Fabulous of 
course] that only eight out of ninety thousand were saved, and six of 
them had to go to Purgatory first, and that "all the rest were con- 
demned to eternal torments." 7:337. "Look upon God as an infinite- 
ly good and tender Father and believe that He only allows the devil to 
try His children that their merits may increase and their recompense 



241 

be correspondingly greater." 107:10. Would it not be better not 
to have a "devil to try His children that their merits may increase 
and their recompense be correspondingly greater," so that more might 
be saved with less "merit" and "recompense" than it is now, where 
only eight out of ninety thousand are saved and "all the rest are con- 
demned to eternal torments?" 

Again: What does it mean to be "saved"? Does it not mean to 
get into heaven? And is not heaven a place of "numberless delights 
and unspeakable happiness?" (7:575,) a happiness that is "eternal and 
perfect," (30:67,) and where men "and their wives shall rest in shady 
groves, leaning on magnificent couches, there shall they have fruit, 
and they shall obtain whatever they shall desire" (108:315); where the 
"inequalities of the present existence shall be removed," (25:239,) and 
with "embracings, kisses in reunion with loved ones" (38:704)? If 
such is heaven, how can anyone be benefited in heaven by "merits" 
obtained on earth? Can you be happier than "perfect happiness?" 
It is not a "greater reward" in heaven that we obtain for our virtues 
and "merits" here on earth, but a less fiiery purification that we will 
have to go through to get into heaven, if we are good and virtuous 
here on earth, for nothing can be better than perfect, and when we get 
into heaven, which is a place of "perfect happiness," how, then, can 
we be happier and receive a "recompense correspondingly greater" 
where there are no "inequalities?" A poor argument for the existence 
of a devil, eh? When Grod allows the devil to try — tempt— ^ us, does 
He tell our Guardian Angels to step aside and give the devil free play? 
Where was Eve's Guardian Angel, or did she have none, because no 
one seemed to protect Eve against the onslaughts of the devil? What 
does a Guardian mean? Does it not mean a protector? Was Eve's 
protector neglecting his or her duty by courting, with the intention of 
getting married to another angel, if "angels are male and female, who 
marry" (12:251) according to Swedenborg? If it is true that each 
mortal is watched by the "spirit appointed to his charge," (105:35,) 
and that Guardian Angels "protect us from dangers of body and soul 
* * * dangers and temptations, warn us against evil," (7:878,) then 
why is it that only eight out of. ninety thousand are saved? Is not 
the Guardian Angel as solicitous about our salvation as the devil is to 
ruin us? And if so, why let the devil get near enough to us to be- 
guile us? Has not the angel as great power as the devil has, and that 
in a conflict with the devil the angel ought to worst him so he could 



242 

not get near enough to tempt us? Is it not becoming about apparent 
to you that there is no devil nor angel tempting nor jjrotecting us, but 
that the tempter is the unseen impelling force inherent in us, and for 
the governing and controlling of which we were given a reason, free 
will and power? With the disappearance of the devil, is not the 
cause of evil, misery and suflPering to be found in the violation of law 
by one not allowing reason, common sense and judgment to rule our 
actions. 

If a man spends his earnings in a saloon or gambling house, on a 
Saturday night, instead of giving them to his wife so she can provide 
the necessities of life for the family will not suffering follow as an 
inevitable consequence? In that case there is no devil, nor a decree 
or will of Grod that the fa!mily should suffer hunger, nakedness and 
cold, but a neglect to exercise reason, common sense and judgment. 
If he would exercise those noble qualities implanted in him by God, 
he would find that they would tell him that he was doing a foolish 
thing to go into a saloon or gambling house to spend his earnings 
there instead of taking them to his wife or jjutting them into a family 
treasury. God has given us a free will and a reason to guide us, and 
if we pervert the proper use of them we will suffer the inevitable 
consequences which follow the violation of law, be that moral or 
physical, and this completely exonerates and vindicates God from all 
claims that it is His will, permission or decree that we should suffer, 
and why there is evil, misery and suffering in the world without a 
devil, and with an. omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God in 
the universe. It is like a person coming to this country who, if one 
wishes to escape the penalties attached to the violation of the laws of 
the land, one must obey the laws. Just the same is it with God. He 
governs the universe by law, laws which have penalties attached to 
them for their violation, and when one violates- them one will suffer its 
penalties, and God neither wills, sends nor decrees that one should suffer 
in any manner whatever, and also proves that God is not the author of 
evil. If you are a Christian Scientist, can you, after reading that, 
still believe that evil and sin and disease are not real, because nothing 
is supposed to be real which was not made by God? If a manufac- 
turer has made a machine, and when you buy it he tells you that you 
must keep the bearings well oiled, otherwise the machine will wear 
out a box and be ruined, and you neglect to observe his instructions 
and the machine is ruined, is the manufacturer the author of your 



243 

ruined machine? And is the ruin not real? Well, so is it with the 
reality of evil, even though God did not create it nor is the author of 
it. We may see, then, that evil can exist without a devil, for it can 
not be said that the man's neglect to oil the machine properly is the 
work of the devil, can it? Or, if a man neglects to repair a harness 
which he knows needs repairing, but believing it will do sei-vice yet 
a while without repair, he uses it on a horse going down a hill, the 
harness breaks, the horse and wagon run away as a consequence, the 
man is thrown out and is badly hurt or killed, can that misfortune be 
attributed to the Will of God or to the work of the devil? Yet I 
know of cases where some get hurt in that manner and it was said "It 
had to be so, it was God's will." Take my case for instance. Was 
that according to God's will or decree, or the work of the devil? Did 
not the gripman, who neglected to pay any attention to my signal to 
stop his car, and I have a free will to do as each of us did, and which 
resulted in an injured spine and stifP hip-joints? Did God or the 
devil influence the will of either of us, so that we acted as we did? 

Did Gor or the devil influence that eighteen-year-old Irish girl, 
years ago, to treat me the way she did, and which has resulted so 
disastroiisly to me, if the teachings of the Church are true that apos- 
tates to that Church will bum for ever in hell, and also disastrously 
to others, those who will no doubt also become apostates to the 
Church after reading this book? If God influenced her mind to treat 
me the way she did — which I do not, to this day, believe she would 
have done had no outside influence of any kind been brought to bear 
on her — then He knew, if He fore-knows all things, that it would be 
the primary cause of my affliction, the sufferings of which would lead 
me to the questioning of the doctrine of everlasting suffering, and the 
final result of the fierce attack, made by me in this book, on the 
Catholic Church, the Bible and Christian Science works, all of which 
it is claimed have God only for their author. Will it be said that the 
hand of God was in all that, just as it is claimed by some that the 
"hand of God is plainly manifested" (15:431,) in the Reformation 
started by Luther? Or is the hand of the devil to be seen in it, just 
as some look upon the Reformation "as the work of Satan" (50:49,) — 
the devil? And if it was the work of the devil where was that girl's 
Guardian Angel, for she is a good Catholic, that would let the devil 
or his agents whisper into her ear to treat me the way she did, the 
effects of that treatment resulting in my present attitude towards the 



244 

subjects treated in this book? If it is tlie work of the devil why did 
not God, if He is omniscient and omnipotent, forestall the devil in 
his attempt and thereby have saved those who will no doubt become 
apostates to the Catholic Church, after reading this book? Is God 
such an indiflPerent Being that He does not care whether any go to 
destruction or not? 

Or is it all a matter of no devil and no providence of God, but a 
matter that is entirely within the control of the reason and free will 
of human beings? a. f. y. I will now cite an instance which com- 
j)letely refutes the teachings of the Church on the subject of a per- 
sonal devil. And if this narrative is a fahle, then all narratives about 
the devil must be fables whether found in Catholic literature or in the 
Bible, which is a work of Catholic influence, for was not the Catholic 
Church the sole custodian of the Bible up to the time of the Reforma- 
tion? "Then Satan turns to the sinner. [Who has just died and is 
being judged.] 'See, wicked wretch,' he cries, 'can you deny this?' 
And as he speaks he unfolds before the unhappy soul the long list of 
her sins. 'Do you remember the sin you committed in that house on 
such a night? I have taken care to note it down, as I knew you were 
so forgetful. Here, too, are the sins you committed that night in the 
ballroom, [I suppose for dancing the "highly indecent, impure, ob- 
scene" round dances for which the Bishop had given no dispensation, 
because the money derived from them did not go into the treasury of 
the Church.] in the theatre, on your way home. Can you deny them? 
Here are noted down all the impure thoughts to which you consented 
in your heart. [This makes the devil a mind reader, just as Jesus 
read the minds of those among whom he went about.] * * * Do 
you remember those sins that you were ashamed to tell your confes- 
sor? Here they are carefully noted down.' (Another case of mind 
reading, or else the devil ^was present in the confessional, which is an 
impossibility if the priest's blessing and Holy Water makes the 
(levils flee, for the confessional is sprinkled with Holy Water when 
the Church and the furniture therein is blessed.] * * * And if 
they chance to find sins not confessed, even though these be not 
looked upon by us as mortal, they exaggerate and magnify them in 
their baneful light, and make them appear greater than they really 
are, in order to force the sinner into discouragement, dejection and 
despair of God's mercy." 7:197, 388. 

From that it may be seen that the devil has the power, as Jesus 



245 

had, which would be a heavenly power, to discern the thoughts of 
one. If it is true then that the devil read the thoughts of any one, 
how does that connect with the stetements that "to the priests is 
given a power which God would not grant either to the angels or 
archangels," (31:398.) [But which it seems He has given to His 
arch enemy.] and that God has "conferred upon them all the heavenly 
powers," (66:38,) | To forgive sins] yet no priest, with "heavenly 
powers," has read my thoughts and saw that my religious profession, 
since the spring of 1899, has been a lie, a lie which I practiced for the 
sake of not disquieting the minds of my people and grieving them, 
before I could put in black and white, my thoughts? Where was the 
"heavenly powers" of the priests, who administered to me the Sacra- 
ments and rites of the Church while in thought I said that they are 
only species of error, idolatry, superstition and blasphemy? Either 
the narrative about the devil noting "down all the impure thoughts" 
to which one consented in the heart, and that he knows of the sins 
one was "ashamed to tell the confessor," is a fable or else the claims 
that "to the priests is given a power which God would not grant 
either to angels or archangels," and that "He has conferred upon them 
all the heavenly powers," to forgive sins in the confessional, is not 
true. For if the latter were true, then the priests should have read 
my thoughts and should have seen that my outward religious obser- 
vances did not correspond with the thought in me, which made the 
observances only lies, should they not? Now, which horn of the 
dilemma will you take if you are a Catholic? If you take the former 
then the priests have not all the "heavenly powers," for certainly if 
the devil has the power to read one's thoughts, the heavenly powers 
should equal that of the devil, and the priests should have read my 
thoughts if they have all "heavenly powers," and if you take the lat- 
ter end of the horn then what becomes of the narrative about the 
devil seeing the thoughts of any one? If you are a Catholic will you 
say that that is only a fable? If you do, then you are a "heretic," 
are you not? If you say that the narrative of the devil reading one's 
thoughts is a fable then how can you believe that the Blessed Virgin 
gave St. Dominic the Rosary, or that the Lord appeared to Margaret 
Mary and made twelve promises to her, one of which is that He "will 
grant the grace of final penitence to those who communicate on the 
first Friday of nine consecutive months," or that the Blessed Virgin 
appeared to Simon Stock and gave him the Scapular? Of course, if 



246 

you are a non-Catholic you do not believe them anyway, but if you 
do not then by what process of reasoning can" you believe the narra- 
tive — about the casting out of devils by Jesus, etc., in the Bible, a 
Bible composed and gotten up by and through Catholic influence, — 
to be literally true? Take for instance the narrative recorded in 
Mark 5:2-12-13, can be taken literally to mean that there were two 
thousand personal devils in one man, and after they were cast out 
they entered that many swine? What did the land of Philestine want 
with swine when the Jews did not eat swine's flesh, just as Dowieites 
do not eat it? For the Jews to have feeding swine, to be meat for 
others, would be like a total abstainer running a brewery or distillery. 
Such a thing might be possible for any one but a Prohibitionist, if 
what a distinguished person once said about the liquor question is 
true, and that is this : He said a total abstainer is one who does not 
drink, but does not want to, by force, prevent others from drinking. 
A temperance man is one who drinks moderately and makes no objec- 
tion if others also want to drink. A Prohibitionist is one who drinks 
[On the qiiiet, of course] but does not want others to drink. [When 
I lived in Chicago I voted the Prohibition ticket a few times, but 
have never voted it anywhere else, not because I thought we would 
"sweep" the city or the state, but because I did not know then that 
men could not be made moral and sober by an act of Parliament, just 
as I hope the Church has learned to know that she cannot shut out 
thought by forbidding my people to let a Christian Science healer 
into the house to see me when I was bedridden. J 

Again, if devils have an e-ntity which is called a soul and it is of 
like substance of which the souls of good spirits and of human beings 
is composed, then how can the devil's soul enter a human being with- 
out displacing the soul already in it? Can you pour water into a jar 
already filled with water without displacing the water that is in the 
jar? Yet we are told that "evil spirts may, if Providence [not the 
Guardian Angel, see, who is probably neglecting duty by 'sparking' 
another angel of opposite sex] permits * * * inhabit the very 
body of men." 12:78. And if it is impossible, then, for the entity 
of one devil, which is of the same nature and substance as the like 
entity in a human being, of entering one without displacing the same 
in the human being, how can two thousand such entities enter the one 
human being? Can any theologian get around that proposition? If 
he cannot, and it is certain he cannot with the "arms of the intellect" 



247 

—but he may by blind faith— then what becomes of Bible narratives 
of where devils, Legion, (Mark 5:9,) were cast out of any one? From 
this it may also be seen that I could never become a Theosophist, for 
it makes it impossible for me to believe in the transmigration of one 
disembodied soul and spirit entering the body of another which is 
embodying another soul and spirit, or in other words Re -incarnation, 
and without a belief in Re-incamation one would be as poor a Theoso- 
phist as one would be a poor Catholic who did not believe that the 
Blessed Virgin can hear over 46,000 petition at the same time, from 
one end of the year to the other; or one be a Christian Scientist, who, 
instead of. looking at the "barometer, that little prophet of storm and 
sunshine," to see whether the weather was fair "in the midst of murky 
clouds and drenching rain," (109:16,) should carry an umbrella over 
the head when going anywhere "in the midst of murky clouds and 
drenching rain;" or one be a Dowieite and believes that a boy could 
have cholera morbus by eating a lot of green apples, blown to the 
ground, in his father's orchard, without its being the work of the 
devil. I am going to make "you all" hate me, or else all of you love 
me for telling the truth about you. You see my aim is unity, there- 
fore, I must drive you together one way or another, or all ways if 
necessary. It may seem, then, that the narrative in Mark 5 can not 
be taken to mean literally personal devils which were cast out of the 
man, but must mean something else or is a fable. Whatever the man's 
affliction was is not for me to say positively, but it could probably be 
placed in the category of things discovered by modem science, philoso- 
phy, experience and observation, as something due to natural causes, 
just as we know now that earthquakes, droughts, and so on, are due to 
natural causes, which some still believe are caused by Satan, the 
"hypothesis * * * that is quite sufficient to account for all the 
phenomena" (110:232-233) of that kind. The writer of the book, 
"Evil and Evolution," just quoted from, written anonymously, would 
make a good Catholic or Dowieite, for with him or her the devil "like 
the Great First Cause Himself he knows how to impose his will upon 
matter," (110:91,) which makes the devil about as powerful as the 
devil is of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Christian Catholic 
Church — Dowieite, who seems to be so powerful that God is afraid to 
twist off his head, like a woman twists off the head of a spring chicken 
for Sunday dinner, or to put him in the "bottomless pit," chained 
down with "everlasting chains," and by doing so He might show that 



248 

He is "an infinitely good and tender Father" who "only allows the 
devil to try His children that their merits may increase" in eight out 
of ninety thousand, and "all the rest condemned to eternal torments." 

It may now be asked, since I do not believe in a personal devil, 
existing as a separate entity outside the natural impelling forces 
inherent in us, whether the narrative in Matt. 4:1-11 is regarded by me 
as a fable or not? I do not regard the temptation of Jesus as a fable, 
but I do not admit that His temptation was due to a personal devil 
such as the Church teaches. The best explanation of that temptation, 
which is in accordance with my view of temptations, that I have yet 
read is the one by Mr. Thomas Jay Hudson, in his book, "The Law of 
Psychic Phenomena," and I will therefore quote his words so that you 
may see how near our views, on temptations in general, agree : 

"The whole life of Christ is an illustration of the fact that He 
knew the law, [Of psychic phenomena,] and, knowing it, employed 
His subjective powers in their legitimate domain, and never suflPered 
Himself to be tempted to allow them to usurp the throne of reason. 
The account of His temptations in the wilderness is a striking illus- 
tration of this fact, and it teaches a lesson to humanity of the utmost 
practical importance. Like all the recorded events of His life, it is 
intended to illustrate a great princij^le. It is not a mere literal his- 
tory of an episode in His career, in which a personal devil figured at 
a disadvantage. To suppose that He could be tempted by such a 
devil as has been pictured by some, would be to degrade Him below 
the level of common humanity. 

"He was just entering upon His ministry. He had shut Himself 
out from the world for forty days, preparatory to entering upon His 
work He em^Dloyed His time in silent contemplation and earnest 
prayer for strength and power and Divine guidance. He fasted all 
this time, as a physical preparation necessary to the attainment of the 
full powers of the soul. At the end of that time, conscious of the 
full possession of subjective power such as no man ever before attained, 
contemj)lating the career upon which He was about to enter, realizing 
all its possibilities for good and all its opportunities for the attain- 
ment of personal power snd aggrandizement, the temptation came. 
His subjective mind was the tempter. Reasoning deductively from 
the consciousness of transcendant power, and selfishly, in obedience to 
the laws of its being, it jjictured to the imagination of Jesus all the 
possibilities in store for Him if He chose to exercise His power for 



249 

selfish ends. The first temptation appealed to His sense of personal 
necessity. He was poor. 'He had not where to lay His head' at night. 
* * * In the pursuit of His mission He had the prospect before 
Him of being often thrown among strangers hostile to His faith; and 
His immediate necessities, after His forty days' fast, gave intensity to 
the temptation and suggested its concrete form. It came in the words: 
'If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made 
bread.' Jesus understood the vision, not only as pertaining to His 
present necessities, but, in its broader sense, as a temptation to the 
exercise of His power for selfish personal ends, for the promotion of 
His individual ease and comfort. 

"It was then that His objective power of reason asserted itself, 
and He refused to allow His subjective mind to usurp control. He 
knew that His mission on earthi could not be j)romoted by the employ- 
ment of His subjective powers for the purpose of ministering to His 
own selfish wants. Therefore He spurned a temptation which, if 
yielded to, would weaken the altruistic sentiment which was regnant 
in Him. His next temj)tation followed the first in deductive logical 
sequence. It came in the form of a symbolical vision, in which He 
saw Himself placed upon a iDinnacle of the temi^le, and a voice said: 
'If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written. He 
shall give His angels charge concerning Thee : and in their hands they 
shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a 
stone.' This suggestion was a sequence to the other, for it was as 
much as to say: 'If you wish to heal the sick, exhibit your power in 
public, where all men can see and know that you have the power to 
preserve your own life. Then you will receive the plavidits of the 
multitude, and their faith in you will be made strong.' * * * His 
next temptation came in the form of a symbolical vision, in which He 
saw Himself, figuratively, [Like we sometimes used to in youth, see 
ourselves the lord of an air castle, before we had learned not to count 
the chickens until they were hatched,] upon the tojj of 'an exceeding 
high moiintain,' from which He could view 'the kingdom of the world 
and the glory of them.' 

"The other temptations attacked His usefulness as a man. The 
third was directed against His spiritual mission also. It came in a 
more insidious form than either the first or second, for its promises 
included both. It was equivalent to saying: 'You see the wide world 
before you, with all its comforts, its honors and glory, its wealtli and 



250 

splendor and power. All these can you acquire by the exercise of 
that potent force with which you have been invested.' (He then 
quotes Matt. 4:10.) Again had reason triumphed over the natural, 
instructive suggestions of His human nature. [How well that agrees 
with my^views of what is the tempter, and also agrees with James 
1:14, where it says that 'man is tempted by his own concupiscence," 
that is, by the impelling forces inherent in us, just like the pressure 
of the steam in the engine is ever ready to propel it when the throttle 
is pulled by the engineer, the reason, free will and power of human 
beings.] Again had He refused to employ the power with which He 
had been invested, outside the limits of its legitimate domain." 22: 
367-361. 

Yes, that is it, if we never employed our impelling forces inherent 
in us "outside the limits of its legitimate domain," do you believe the 
world would be as full as it is of luxurious wealth, abject poverty, 
drunkenness, licentiousness, legal murderings — wars, robberies, mur- 
ders, infanticides, suflPe rings, woes, etc.? Do you understand now why 
it is that there is so much evil and suffering in the world without a 
personal devil being the cause of it, and without God decreeing, send- 
ing, or willing it? It is simply because we have not employed within 
"the limits of its legitimate domain" the impelling forces inherent in 
us, and which are necessary to the preservation and propogation of 
the human species. Yet we are told that God sends us afflictions, and 
when He does "it is proof that He loves you and desires to save your 
soul. Let us, then, in the future kiss the hand that chastises us, and 
thank God that He smites us here, to spare us in eternity." 111:123. 
Also, "as a consolation in sickness, you should consider that God sends 
you this affliction for the welfare of your soul, that you may know 
your sins; or if you be innocent, to practice patience, humility, char- 
ity, etc., and increase your merits," (5:567.) for heaven, I suppose, 
which is a place of "perfect happiness" for all who get there. Did you 
ever notice how quickly the doctor is sent for when any one is loved 
by the Lord so that he sends them a "love token" in the form of a 
sickness? They do not seem to be very anxious that the Lord should 
love them, do they? Well, Dr. Dowie can better explode such an 
erroneous belief than I can, that God sends us sickness and diseases 
because He loves us, even though he is in error himself as to the 
causes of them, and I will, therefore, give his view of the complexion 
of a congregation and persons whom the Lord loves, because He 



251 

"chastises us" with afflictions. "Now suppose for a moment I be- 
lieved that * * * that 'Whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth' 
means 'Whom the Lord loveth He maketh sick.' What should I have 
to believe? I should have to believe that every Christian who was 
the most filthily diseased was the most beloved of the Lord, and that 
the Lord loved such persons above all others. Listen, then. If I 
went to a church where the minister preached that, what should I ex- 
pect? I should expect every member of that church to be sick be- 
cause the Lord loves them. One says, as he coughs, 'Ahem, ahem, 
how the Lord loves me in my throat to-day, I can't talk.' Another, 
'Oh, how the Lord loves me in my leg. I can't walk.' Another says, 
'Oh, how the Lord loves me in my eyes, I can't see.' So I should 
expect to find a congregation like that. Now, I want to find a seat in 
that assembly of the divinely loved, and the steward says, "Oh, the Lord 
loves me so in the leg I can't walk. There is dear Brother Jones. 
The Lord loves him in the throat. He can find you a seat, his legs 
are all right.' Brother Jones thereupon takes me down the aisle and 
silently shows me a seat. So I sit in that church where all believe 
'Whom the Lord loveth He maketh sick.' [To increase 'their merits.'] 
They are all sick, many very sick, and all are praising the Lord for 
their love tokens. Should I stay and see the organist, choir and min- 
ister of that church, I would find that the organist is loved so much 
by the Lord that his fingers miss a note now and then. The choir 
tries to sing and can't sing. 1* wait for the minister. Behold him! 
He is sick! Disease is written all over his face and Death is resting 
on him like a pall. He crawls up to the pulpit, his heart palpitates, 
he is so much loved by the Lord, dear, interesting fellow! How the 
Lord loves him! He has not had one good night's sleep for three 
months. How the Lord loves him ! He is coughing and scarcely has 
any power to talk at all, but the Lord loves him ! He tries to talk 
and cannot do it and finally says, "Brethren, 'whom the Lord loveth 
He chasteneth.' Let us sing our doxology, 'Praise God from whom 
all sickness flows,' and let us go home to bed.' " 

" 'Oh, but,' says somebody, 'don't you know that disease makes 
men better, sometimes? That people are brought to God by sick- 
ness?' Are they? I deny it. * * * I have visited hospitals and 
have worked among the suffering in many lands. * * * Shall I 
tell you what I know? Disease does not bring people nearer to God; 
it drives them further away from Him. It is the Holy Spirit that 



252 

brings people to God, whether sick or well. * * * If you say that 
sickness and disease will bring you nearer to Grod, then suppose, for 
a moment, that I have a choice stock of diseases here, and I say, come 
up here and let me give you typhoid fever, or consumption, or cholera; 
let me knock out an eye or break a leg for you — I will do all this as 
God's minister to bring you nearer to God and to show you that He 
loves you. My experience is directly opposite to the teaching that 
diseases, the corruption of father Satan and mother Sin, ever brought 
people to God. Those who have lived nearest God find that disease 
lessens their faith, depresses their spirits [That was my experience 
when I suffered the intensest pains that I ever suffered, when persons 
would visit me when I was bedridden and would tell me that my suf- 
fering was God's will, and that I would receive a great reward for it. 
Yes, a "great reward" for loving a young woman more than the Crea- 
tor, for if that had not been the case I would not have made that 
Wednesday evening call on my friend, already mentioned, which gave 
me the rheumatism that has resulted so disastrously.] and leaves them 
in the shadows and darkness; and when their loved ones have passed 
away it often leaves a shadow behind that is never effaced so long as 
they think God sent the disease." 82:26. "Every kind of sickness, 
and every kind of disease from which yo\i suffer, or from which any 
one upon this earth suffers, is the work of the devil; and * * * can 
never be the will of God." 106:15. • 

I about agree with the Doctor in all that excepting the first part 
of the latter quotation that "every kind of sickness, and every kind of 
disease * * * is the work of the devil." If such were a fact it 
would impeach God's benevolence and love for His children by not 
removing a cause without, or outside us that is the cause of all our 
sickness and disease. Such a proposition is not much better than 
that God wills we should have sickness and disease, is it? Is not my 
view the more reasonable, and also a vindication of God, freeing Him 
from all blame and responsibility? The fact that God governs by 
law, with penalties attached to them for their violations, just as the 
laws of a country have a penalty attached to them for violations of 
them, and man given a reason and a free will, with power to choose — 
wherein the nobility and responsibility of man consists — to employ 
the inherent impelling forces, whith the nature of every normal 
human being, either within, and suffer no penalty, or "outside the 
limits of its legitimate domain," and suffer penalties, frees God from 



253 

all blame if any one chooses to violate the law and suffers penalty for 
violating it. Is that not so? And when any one has violated a law 
and is punished for it, can it be said that the executioners of the law, 
the judge, the sheriff and the jailer are fiends any more so than any 
other innocent person is? Yet we are told that devils "become instru- 
ments of justice in the hands of Grod." 12:51. When Dr. Dowie says 
that "Every kind of sickness, and every kind of disease is the work 
of the devil" does that free God from all charges of responsibility? 
Does the devil wound and God heal those wounds? Is the devil so 
powerful that God cannot remove him, thereby removing the cause of 
the wounds He heals? Would not a sensible man, who had the 
power to do so, remove a wolf that wounded his lambs and sheep ? 
Has not God, then, the sense of His creatures, because He does not 
remove the devil — if he does not want to destroy him because he must 
suffer for his sin committed in heaven, which he committed without a 
devil to tempt him, if Lucifer was the first devil, and if an angel can 
sin without a devil why cannot a human being do the same? — to a 
place where he cannot always wound and oppress His children? Or 
has He not the power to do that? If not, then He is not omnipotent? 
The doctrine of a personal devil is a blasphemous one when thorough- 
ly analyzed, is it not? When Jesus said to Peter: "Go behind me, 
satan, thou art a scandal to me: because thou savourest not the things 
that are of God, but the things that are of men," (Matt. 16:23," did 
He mean literally that Peter was a devil? If not, then why should 
the temptation of Jesus be taken to mean that He was tempted by a 
personal devil, and not as Mr. Hudson described it, namely, by an 
inward mental trial? Has anyone really such a low conception of the 
character of Jesus as to believe He would climb a "very high moun- 
tain" to be shown "all the kingdoms of the world, [Which is an im- 
possibility, for one cannot see over a few hundred miles, at the most, 
let alone thousands of miles] and the glory of them" (Matt. 4:8,] for 
the purpose of letting a personal devil ask Him to fall down and adore 
Him? If Jesus could read the thoughts of persons, as recorded in 
the Bible, could He not read the thoughts of a devil, and having done 
so, said to the devil, at the foot of the mountain, in His weak and 
hungry condition, before He climbed the "very high mountain," "Be- 
gone, satan, I know what you want with Me on the top of that strong, 
rough and snow-capped mountain. You want to show Me all the 
kingdoms of the world and then promise to give them to Me if I will 



254 

fall down and adore thee. Do you think I have no sense that you can 
fool Me into climbing that mountain, in My weak and hungry condi- 
tion, only to let you tempt Me with promises which I know you can- 
not fulfil? Begone! what do you take. Me for? A fool?" 

Now, that the doctrine of a personal devil is tolerably well pul- 
verized, with the batteringrams of the "arms of the intellect," does 
that destroy the belief in the existence of God as some maintain it 
would? 12:152. Does it not rather strengthen the belief in a God 
who is not partial, vindictive, or indifferent, but who is just and impar- 
tial, punishing only where deserved, — that is, letting a man reap what 
he sows, — and rewarding where merited, and who does not will, send, 
or decree any evil and suffering and sickness? Of course with the 
destruction of the doctrine of a personal devil the doctrine of the 
Atonement falls with it, and this I have already shown to be a fact, 
that it is an erroneous and blasphemous one, but that does not destroy 
the belief in God, does it? Yet it is said that if there is "no Satan, 
there is no fall of man; [Which is also true in the sense in which 
theology teaches it, for the Fall had nothing to do with the death of 
the body. Physical death being a natural and necessary process in 
the onward and upward progress of man, as will be shown in the chap- 
ter on the Resurrection] no fall of man, no Redemption, no Redeemer; 
no Redeemer, no Christianity; [Why not? Was St. Benedict a Re- 
deemer? Yet are there not Benedictines, who, if thej" "wish to be a 
disciple of St. Benedict," must "follow his example?" 43:24-25. If, 
then, any follow the example of Christ Jesus can they not be Chris- 
tians as well as those are Benedictines who "follow his example?"] no 
Christianity, no religion; no religion, no God." 12:152. Is that true? 
Because I have ruled out the devil have I thereby ruled out God? 
Have I not given you a conception of a nobler Being who governs and 
rules the universe by law, who only rewards where merited and pun- 
ishes where deserved, than is that of the partial, capricious, vindic- 
tive, indifferent, "choosing," unreasonable, idiotic and senseless God 
of the Catholic Church, Dr. Dowie and Moses? 

To prove to you God governs by law, I will cite a report of a 
wreck which caused the death of some and the wounding of others. 
The item in part is as follows: "In point of damage and loss of life, 

last night's wreck was the worst in the history of the railroad. 

* * * A wrecking train going through creek bridge thirty- 
five feet below, killing many people and totally demolishing the train. 



255 

* * * When crossing a steel bridge the crane of the wrecker struck 
the overhead portion and under the terrible strain and the force of a 
powerful engine pushing the wrecker, the bridge gave way and the 
entire train crashed into the water far below with awful results." 
Now, did God will, send or decree such a great misfortune, or was it 
the work of the devil, or was it due to the carelessness of the men in 
mounting the crane in such a way as to project so far out as to strike 
the "overhead portion" of a steel bridge, so as to make the bridge give 
way and let the train crash "into the water far below with awful re- 
sults?" 19:— A. f. y. 

Yet we are told this: "This is how we should behave, dear Chris- 
tians, when misfortune, [Like the killing, in the bridge wreck, of the 
fathers who are supporters of families,] tribulation, or suffering [Like 
the men wounded in the wreck] overtake us, no matter how great or 
small they may be; we should remember that we are owned by Grod, 
and that the owner can do as he pleases with what belongs to Him; 
[Is that so? Ask the "Humane Society" if a brute owner of a horse 
may club, maltreat and do "as he pleases with what belongs to him" — 
the horse?] we should always be content, whether things go well or ill 
with us, because we should be assured that everything happens accord- 
ing to the will of God, [As for instance the making of fatherless chil- 
dren by that wreck. No wonder the infidels and atheists hate such a 
God. And as I do, too!] and that nothing can happen without His 
will. [So when the devil seduced Adam and Eve and plunged the 
innocent animals and the human race into misery, suffering, woe and 
death it could not have happened "without His will." No wonder the 
infidels and atheists will not adore and worship such an "infinitely 
tender and loving Father."] Everything that happens in this world 
happens either by God's command or with God's permission, [As for 
instance my fierce attack on "His only Church," and His "inspired 
Word" — the Bible.] We ignorant and short-sighted men often think 
that when a misfortune befalls us, this or that person is the cause of 
it, but far from it. [So when that wreck made widows and fatherless 
children, they would be "ignorant and short-sighted" to think that 
that misfortune which befell them was caused by the carelessness of 
the men in mounting the "crane of the wrecker" in such a way as to 
project so far out as to strike the bridge, weaken it, and let the train 
crash through it, which killed their husbands and fathers. So, then, 
there is no other alternative for them but to believe that God was the 



256 

cause of it all. Oh, what a kind, tender and good Father that must 
be, who commands, in an indirect way, that women be made widows, 
and children fatherless, and probably orphans, because "nothing can 
happen without His will," and He has "only to will and the thing is 
done."] 29:57. * * * Neither can the devil do us any injury, 
unless God permits it." 111:151. 

Well, does any rational, reasonable and intelligent person believe 
that if an Infidel or an Atheist happened into a Church when such a 
sermon is preached, of which I just gave an extract, that it would in- 
spire them and lead them to believe in a God? Why, it is enough to 
shaken the belief in God in a believer who thinks and reflects. Is 
that not so? a. f. y. 

I will quote from the Vedanta philosophy an extract which about 
expresses my view on the origin and cause of evil, and it will show 
that neither God wills, sends, nor commands evil or misfortune, nor 
is it the work of a personal devil. "The Vedanta jjliilosophers try to 
explain the so-called punishment and reward by referring to the law 
of cause and sequence, the law of action and reaction. * * * When 
we do certain acts we are sure to reap certain results. [Just what St. 
Paul said in Gal. 6:8. "For what things a man shall sow, those also 
shall he reap," etc.] But, if the results come before we have forgot- 
ten the cause which brought them, we call them either rewards, or 
punishments. If a good act is done today, the result may come at 
once, or after many years. God never punishes the wicked, nor re- 
wards the virtuous. [In the same sense that the author of a law of 
the land neither punishes the criminal nor rewards the law-abidding 
citizen.] He shines like the impartial sun equally upon the heads of 
sages and sinners. It is our own acts that bring results, [Just like 
the wreck, already mentioned] either in the form of reward or pun- 
ishment. When we understand clearly the law of cause and sequence, 
and of action and reaction, then we cease to blame God or any other 
extra-cosmic creator of evil. Then we do not say that evil has been 
interpolated from without. If we know that all the forces of nature, 
both physical and mental, are but so many expressions of one Eternal 
Energy or Divine will [Just as the steam in the engine in one sense, 
expresses energy, and which may be compared to the ^inherent im- 
pelling forces within us, which we are, with the rerson, free will and 
power with which we are endowed, never to employ "outside the 
limits of its legitimate demain."] which is far beyond the relative good 



257 

and evil, then we do not see good and evil in the universe, | Just as 
the steam in the engine is neither good nor evil if not used, and when 
used we cpm make it good by using it to propel machinery, or make it 
evil when it explodes the boiler and kills or wounds man, and wrecks 
things.] but on the contrary, we find everywhere the expression of that 
Divine Will. [Laws of nature.] The nature of an efPeet must be the 
same as that of the cause, because effect is nothing but the mani- 
fested state of the cause, and if the cause of the universe be one 
eternal, Divine Energy, then the universe, as a whole, can be neither 
good nor evil. [ But only when we, not the devil, make it good or 
evil, And we have made it both.] When we can throw aside the 
narrow, limited glass of our relative standard, through which we are 
now looking at the events of life and put on our mental eye the glass 
of divine energy or universal will, then we shall no longer see good 
and evil, virtue and vice, or reward arid punishment. But we shall 
see the expression of one law of causation everywhere. Then we shall 
not blame our parents, [Except to a certain extent, when drunken and 
profligate parents cause sufferings of cold, hunger and nakedness to 
their helpless children, etc.] or Satan, or God, or anybody, [The latter 
has some exceptions, as for instance that wreck already mentioned] 
but shall understand that all o-ur misery is but the result of our own 
acts [with exceptions, as noted above] which we did in this life. * * * 
If we understand that as electricity is neither positive nor negative, 
but appears as positive or negative when manifested through a mag- 
net, we can apprehend that the laws of nature only appear to us as 
good or evil when they express themselves through the gigantic mag- 
net of the phenomenal universe." 113:17-18. Is that not a more 
reasonable, sensible and comprehensible view of the origin and cause 
of our misery, suffering and woe than is that of the Catholic Church, 
Dr. Dowie, and the Bible, with their unreasonable, senseless, incom- 
prehensible, self-contradictory, erroneous, superstitious, God slander- 
ing, God degrading, blasphemous, unintelligible verbosity, that of God 
willing, sending and commanding it, and as the work of the devil who, 
"as a roaring lion, goetli about, seeking whom he may devour," (I. 
Pet. 5:8,) and whom God, at the same time, "hath reserved under 
darkness in everlasting chains?" JudeB. Come on, with your "Word 
of God," and prove the existence of a personal devil from it, with the 
"arms of the intellect!" Oh, I can see in imagination, from the top of 
a "very high mountain," the different church denominations, excepting 



258 

the Christian Scientists and the so-called "anti-Christian" (2:105- 
106, Sec. 1) Unitarians who "have no part or lot with Christ," (82:7,) 
and whose creed "can never lead men to Salvation," (114:7,) gathering 
up their traditions; Infallible authorities; writings of the Fathers; 
the wisdom and learning of eighteen centuries; the decrees and Can- 
ons of Councils and Conferences; Josephus' History of the Jews — 
the Old Testament; warrant a Scripture that the devil goes about like 
a roaring lion, and fastened down in hell with everlasting chains at 
the same time, and coming together in one fort — Unity — ramming all 
that into one gun called Faith and then challenging to mortal combat 
the lonely arch-heretic with presumptuous ignorance, who is equipped 
with only the God-given arms of the intellect. Which side do you 
believe will come out victorious? Do you believe I will accomplish 
my object, that of Christian Unity, or the Union of the Churches? 
There is probably no more subject which, if the different denomina- 
tions are not quite ready yet to obliterate sectarian boundaries, break 
down denominational walls and fences, and erase creedal lines and 
become One Church, ought to accomplish that, and that is the doc- 
trine of the Resurrection. As a literal Resurrection, — or more pro- 
perly it should be called Re-creation, if there were any truth in it — 
is no longer believed in by some religious denominations, nor by men 
of Natural Science, and is not taught by the Scriptures, I will next 
consider it, and will attempt to prove to the reader that that is a greatly 
misunderstood subject, and an error like all the subjects are which I 
have already considerod and pronounced as such. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE RESURRECTION. 

Were it not for the purpose of bringing as many as possible into 
One Church and of obliterating the many denominational Churche?, 
and making it appeal to unbelieving scientists and others as strongly 
as possible to come into this One Church, I would let the subject of 
the Resurrection pass by without notice. But knowing that many 
religious jjersons, and others, do no longer believe in a literal re- 
creation — for that is what it is, were it truly or correctly named — of a 
body of disintegrated dust, which may be scattered over the earth, and 
even the substance thereof have entered into the elements which com- 
poses another i:)erson's fleshly body, or into that of an animal, or a 
tree, etc., I deem it necessary, then, that it be given a passing notice. 
Granting here that there is such an entity as the soul, which is an 
immaterial, invisible organism permeating the whole corporeal struc- 
ture, or body, of every humaii being, and which I will, in another 
chapter, attempt to prove to the unbeliever is as much a reality as the 
material body, we will see what is taught about its condition after 
being separated from the body. "What does death destroy? The 
body. The soul still lives and moves and has its being. It thinks 
and wills and remembers and loves." 31:191. "The departure of the 
spirit from its unsettled and shattered habitation * * * worketh no 
change in the nature." 105:18-] 9. "The great theologian and phi- 
losopher, Suarez, teaches on this subject: 'The soul separated (from 
the body) preserves the same subsistance which it had whilst in the 
body, nor does it change its utility (nature), but only its mode of 
existence; it thereby neither gains nor loses anything essential. * * * 
In the separate soul there remain the intellect, the will, and the power 
to move itself, as also the natural habits of the intellect and will, 
acquired in this life; * * * Therefore, the separate soul there 
can understand and will; it knows all things which it knew in life, [as 
for instance, remorse of conscience for wrongs committed againt-t 
others, as the drunkard who, instead of taking his earnings to his wife 
or putting it into the family treasury, spends it in a grog shop, and 
brings sufferings of cold, hunger and nakedness to his innocent, heart- 



260 

broken, despondent wife and children, a wrong in this life which he 
will know in the next, because he knew it — or ought to know it — here] 
by means of the acquired ideas. It even understands better than it 
did when yet united to the body." 102:149. "The souls of believers 
do enjoy inconceivable blessedness and glory, even while they remain 
separated from their bodies. * * * If Paul had not expected to 
enjoy Christ till the resurrection, why should he be in a strait, or de- 
sire to depart? * * * If the 'blessedness of the dead that die in 
the Lord' were only in resting in the grave,- then a beast or a stone 
were as blessed * * * Another thing that leads to paradise is that 
great work of Jesus Christ in raising the body from the dust, and 
uniting it again unto the soul." 18:103, 104, 45. [Why reunite body, 
— lesh and blood which '-cannot possess the kingdom of God'' (I. 
Cor. 15:50) — with the soul, if the soul can "enjoy inconceivable bles- 
sedness and glory, even while separated from the body?"] "To Grod 
the death of man is but the passing from one state of existence to 
another, from one department to another in the same universe. Death 
is not annihilation, or reabsorption into the elements of matter, but a 
transportation from one state to another [Then why return to matter 
again if traiisported to another state, spirit existence?] in which man 
retains his individuality and conscious identity as truly and really as 
does he who passes from one room to another in the same house." 
39:67. "We go to the banks of Jordan and call across to them, [The 
departed,] but they do not seem to hear. We say, 'Is it well with the 
child? Is it well with the loved ones?' And we listen to hear if any 
voice come back over the waters. None, none! Unbelief says: 'They 
are dead, and they are annihilated,' but, blessed be God! we have a 
Bible that tells us different! We open it and we find they are neither 
dead nor annihilated — that they were never so much alive as now." 
38:416, May 16, 1900. "Many theologians have said not only that the 
least pain of purgatory was greater than the greatest pain of earth, 
but greater than all pains of earth put together." 11:380. [No doubt, 
like Jesus on the Cross, God will forgive those blaspheming theolo- 
gians, because they know not what they do, when speaking of the 
pains of purgatory! If any one calumniated your father, as these 
theologians calumniate God, would not your blood boil with indigna- 
tion if you had any love, respect and honor for your father? Can you, 
then blame me for giving vent to my indignation in calling them 



261 

ji'blaspheining theologians" when they calumniate the God that is, if I 
have any love, respect and honor for him?] 

If all the foregoing quotations are true, that "the soul still lives 
and moves and has its being;" that it can "enjoy inconceivable bles- 
sedness and glory;" that death is only a transportation from one state 
to another, as a person "who passes from one room to another in the 
same house;" and the soul, without the body, in purgatory can suffer 
pains that are "greater than all pains of earth put together," then 
why in the name of common sense and reason does the soul need to 
be reunited with a body of flesh and blood which "cannot possess the 
kingdom of God?" I Cor. 15:50, A flat contradiction right here of a 
bodily resurrection, is it not? Yet a man-made creed tells us to be- 
lieve in the "Resurrection of the body," flesh and blood and bone, as 
a priest stated in a funeral sermon when he said: "We will rise out 
of the dust on the Resurrection day, the last day, with the same 
body, the same flesh, the same bone, and the same blood that we have 
here now, to be united with our souls." If the body is to be made 
glorified, why is not some attention paid to cleansing it from tlie filth 
of tobacco, from the bloating of liquor, etc., and treated with honor, 
respect and reverence? Is that what some so-called saints did, who 
fled to the desert and fed the body on roots and herbs and slejDt on the 
bare ground or oak leaves, and who tortured their bodies that their 
souls may be made the more beautiful? 

If the body is to undergo such "supernatural" changes, why not 
reverse the process and mortify the soul and sjjend the time on 
adorning and beautifying the body instead of the soul? Are we not 
told that leprosy of the soul is worse than leprosy of the body? Yet 
the body is to be "glorified" and the soul remain the same, and we 
must guard ourselves against the leprosy of the soul before all else. 
What an inconsistency! 

Why did not Jesus say, then, "What shall it profit a man if he 
gain the whole world and lose his arm or limb or an eye," if the body 
is to be made the most of in the end? Here it is the soul that re- 
quires first and foremost consideration, bat in the end the worm eaten 
flesh and bones, that have been made dust, shall have the greatest 
honor conferred on them by being made "glorified." It is another 
case of misunderstanding, and the taking of the letter for the spirit 



262 

as in the cases of being "born again," and of putting on Christ by 
the "frequentation of the Eucharistic table." 

I. Cor. 15th chapter is regarded as the Resurrection chapter, but 
on a proper interpretation of it it will be found that it does not teach 
a literal resurection of the fleshy body. "As the grain of wheat must 
rot and die before it can become fruitful, before it can produce life, so 
miist this gross animal [Fleshy] body of ours, says St. Paul, be sown 
in the ground: it must rot there and die, [How can it die when already 
dead before put in the grave?] And then a spiritual body shall rise — 
a body beautiful, glorious, and impossible." 7:217. When a grain 
of wheat is sown and rots and another plant arises from it yielding 
many fold grains, is that the same grain of wheat resurectcd or is it 
succession? The 15th chapter of I. Cor. is a strong one for the un- 
believer's claim that there is no individual immortality but only suc- 
cession. That we appear on the scene, play our part, have descend- 
ants and pass to non-existence again. And what better illustration 
could they have to prove their claim than the interpretation put on I. 
Cor. loth chapter, as qiioted above, that "this gross animal body of 
ours must be sown in the ground, rot there and die, and then a spirit- 
ual body shall rise" from it ? 

Where does a mortal put on mortality, in the grave or in life? 
Does the mortal, who has "borne the image of the earthly." and 
wants to "bear also the image of the heavenly" (I. Cor. 15:-t9) accom- 
plish that transition by rutting in the grave, or is it done through the 
operation of the mind by an act of the will, when still on this plan 
of existence? The resurrection spoken of in the Bible does not mean 
the reanimation of the earthly, fleshy body, but the resurrection of the 
soul that has died because of sin. Does not the Bible say that "The 
soul that sinneth, the same shall die?" I.Eze.l8:20. The resurrection 
is spiritual, is spirtual resurrection, as the life is spiritual life. "The 
only real death is the soul's death: that is sin. ignorance, unbelief. 
The soul which lives in sin is dead in its higher faculties. Christ 
comes to raise us out of this spiritual death into spiritual life: and 
then we say, "The law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath 
made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom. 8:2. What death? 
Did not St. Paul die the bodily death? If Rom. 8:2 meant bodily 
death, did it free him then from the law of death? When Jesus said: 
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my word, \ie shall never 
see death," (John 8:51,) did that have reference to physical death? 



263 

If it did, did not the Apostles keep His word because they all died the 
physical death? And if it means the soul then what is there to resur 
rect when "all live to Him?" Luke 20-38. When St. John said: 
"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we leave 
the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death," (I. John 3:14,) 
did he actually mean that he had passed from a literal death of the 
body, and that those that loveth not were physically dead? When St. 
Paul said: "Even when we were dead in sins, [God] hath quickened 
us together in Christ, (by whose grace you are saved) and hath raised 
us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places 
through Christ Jesus, (Eph. 2:5, 6) had he been literally raised up, 
and was sitting in heavenly places, as we will be raised "up in the last 
day" (John 6:25), if we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son 
of Man? "Amen, amen, I say \anto you, that he who heareth my word, 
and believeth him that sent me, hath life everlasting: and cometh not 
into judgment, but is passed from death to life." (John 5:24.) How 
does that agree with the teachings of a reserrection and general judg- 
ment? It does not agree at all, does it? "Amen, amen I say unto 
you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the 
voice of the Son of Man, and they that hear shall live. * * * And 
they that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrec- 
tion of life; [It does not say, resurrection of the body, does it?] but 
that they have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." (John 
5:25, 29.) What does it mean that those "that have done evil, shall 
come unto the resurrection of judgment when they have heard the 
voice of the Son of Man?" When one sends money to the conscience 
fund, because one has attended' a mission or a revival where one lias 
heard the "voice of the Son of Man," then it is when one comes to the 
"resurrection of judgment" for the dishonesty — evil — one has done. 
When such a one was dead in sin the judgment — conscience — was dead 
and it needed to be resurrected. And I believe if there were a general 
resurrection such as is meant by the teachings of Christ and the 
Apostles many a conscience fund would be materially swelled, and the 
world in general be less a "vale of tears" than it is now. The fact 
Jesus said: "The hour cometh, and now is. [Just as He said: 'the 
hour cometh, a/i'f noio ifi, when the true orders shall adore the Father 
(not pray for the Blessed Virgin) in spirit and in truth.'"] (John 
4:23,) when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Man. and they 
[Why not all, if it means a general resurrection of the bodies of 



264 

clust?[ that hear shall live," j^roves conclusively that resurrection does 
not mean a general reanimation of disintegrated dust, but a resurrec- 
tion of the life principle of the soul, which has been deadened by sin 
and unbelief, and this operation may take place nov) — for the hour 
31010 is — ^when we may hear the voice of the Son of Man, while we are 
in the grave of spiritual death, and when through the operation of the 
mind, by an act of the will we, in our conscience, assimilate — eat — the 
voice of the Son of Man — the Bread of Life — we come unto the resur- 
rection of life — spiritual life which shall never see death. If it meant 
literally that there was a consciousness in the grave in the earth that 
can hear the voice of the Son of Man, and a soul elsewhere with a 
consciousness that "thinks and wills and remembers and loves," (31 :191) 
and "retains its individuality and conscious identity, (39:67,) then a 
person would be possessed of two entities that are immortal, two 
consciousnesses, and if so, which one is the ego, the I am? "Amen I 
say to you, there are some of them that stand here, that shall not taste 
death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Matt. 
16:28. "Amen I say to you, that there are some of them that stand 
here, who shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of Grod com- 
ing in power." Mark 8:39. Do these two texts refer to a general 
resurrection on the last day? If so, then, do you know of any, on this 
plane of existence, who were present when Jesus said that they should 
not taste death till the day of resurrection of bodies, and of the general 
Judgment? And if it does not refer to the general Judgment and 
resurrection of bodies, from the graves of the earth, then by what 
process of reasoning can the Church construe the following texts to 
mean a general resurrection and the "Last Judgment?" 5:17, 18. 
"There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: 
and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the roaring of the 
sea and of the waves. Men withering away with fear, and expectation 
of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven 
shall be moved: and then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a 
cloud with great jyrtM'e?" [Just as "some of them that stand here, that 
shall not taste death, till they see the So)i of Man coming in his king- 
dom," and "see the kingdom of Grod coming in jt>r>?wr,"] and majesty. 
* * * When you shall see these things come to pass, know that the 
kingdom of God is at hand. [Seeing it as when "There are some 
standing here, that shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of 



265 

Go(/."} Luke 9:27. Amen I say to you, this generation shall not 
pass away, till all things be fulfilled." Luke 21:25-27, 31, 32. 

The "generation" to which Jesus spoke has it not passed away 
yet, because '"all things" of which He sjioke have not been fulfilled 
yet? Does "regeneration" in that case mean the human race, and 
when He used the same word in Matt. 24:34, "Amen I say to you, that 
this generation shall not pass, till all those things be done," it means 
only one age of the human race, because the generation He then spoke 
to saw His prophecies fulfilled, — "done," — in the destruction of Jeru- 
salem? In both instances He used the parable of the fig tree. Why, 
then, should the word "generation" in the one instance mean the 
human race, — "sinners who have scorned," (5:17,) the cross, — and in 
the other only "His hearers" (5:589) w-ho would live to see the de- 
struction of Jerusalem? It will not do to say that the "desolation of 
Jerusalem was a figure" "of the end of the world and of His coming 
to judgment," (5:589,) for in that case His hearers would have to live 
till "all these things be done," in order to make it a correct "figure." 
Is that not so? But, then, as some one once said, "that the Bible was 
like wax, and could be twisted so it would fit any meaning one wants 
to give it," so the Church has distorted the Bible so as to make it fit 
the meaning she wants to give to her erroneous teachings. The 
Church is just as much in error about ^hat the resurrection meant, 
as taught by Christ and the Apostles, as she is about the meaning of 
regeneration. "What did Jesus mean by regeneration? [Of Matt. 
19:28. I The resurrection of the dead on the Last Day, for then the 
whole man will be renewed and regenerated, so to speak, body and 
soul. This renewal and regeneration will be a glorious one for the 
pious and just, but a fearful one for the wicked." 5:734. But St. 
Paul does not say that, does he, when he says, "but though our out- 
ward man is corrupted: yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 
* * * The things which are seen [Like the 'earthly house of this 
habitation,' which is to 'be dissolved'] (2 Cor. 5:1) are temporal: but 
the things [Like our 'building of God, a house not made with hands, 
eternal in heaven'] (2 Cor. 5:1) which are net seen are eternal?" 
2 Cor. 4:16-18. If it is true as Dr. Dowie says — and I do not question 
it — that if we are faithful, and do our work, we shall be saved, we shall 
be healed, and one night we shall lie down in peace, and we shall sleep 
on earth, "and wake in heaven" (106:31); and souls can "enjoy incon- 
ceivable blessedness and glory, even while they remain separated from 



266 

their bodies;" or can suffer pains in Purgatory or hell that are 
"greater than all pains of earth put together," then what is there 
gained or lost by being united again to "our earthly house of this habi- 
tation," which is to "be dissolved" and returned to dust of the earth, 
"from whence it was, [Just as all flesh returns to "dust"] and the spirit 
[The "inward man" returns "to God, who gave it?" Eccl. 12:7. It 
could neither add to nor detract from our individuality, any more than 
the husk of the corn in the field can add to or detract from the quality 
of the ear of corn once in the crib, by gathering it and placing the 
ear into it again. Do you believe that? Is that not reasonable, sensi- 
ble, and Scriptural? Our fleshly bodies are to us what the husk is to 
the corn, or the shell to the kernel. It is our temporal habitation 
while on this plane of existfence, and when we go to the spiritual plane 
— the place of higher existence — we leave this "earthly house" of our 
habitation — matter, flesh and blood — behind us because it "can not 
possess the kingdom of God," the spiritual plane of existence. Do 
not infer from this that I am a Spiritualist, for I do not know whether 
Spiritualism is true or not, for I have not had the opportunity yet to 
prove it, and so long as I have not proven a thing — when it is possible 
of proof, as it is claimed Spiritualism is — I do not afiirm nor deny it. 
"Oh," but it will probably be said, ''does not the Bible say that 
Henoch 'walked with God, and was seen no more: because Good took 
him,' (Gen. 5:24,) and does that not mean that he was bodily taken 
into heaven?" If it is true that "God is not a respecter of persons. 
But in every nation, he that feareth Him, and worketh justice, is 
acceptable to Him," (Acts 10:34-35.) and that '"those who lived before 
the coming of the Redeemer of the world could not enter Heaven be- 
fore Him," (30:101.) and that "before the coming of Jesus Christ, the 
portals of Heaven were closed, and could be opened only by the merits 
His Passion and Cross." (36:141,) then how could Henock have been 
taken into heaven? But who saw him taken to heaven? No one did, 
if the following is true: "So Enoch [Henoch] taught the people and 
united them in peace and harmony. Then Enoch mounted his horse 
and rode away, and a multitude of people followed him a day's jour- 
ney. And it came to pass on the second day that Enoch spoke to 
those who followed him, saying: 'Return to your tents! Wherefore 
follow me? Return, lest death overtake ye.' A number of the fol- 
lowers retiarned at these words, but others continued to journey with 
him; and every day he spoke to them, saying: 'Return, lest death 



267 

overtake ye.' And on the sixth day there were still some who followed 
after him. and they said. 'Where thou goesi will we go: as the Lord 
liveth naught but death shall separate us:" so when Enoch saw that 
they were thus determined he spoke to them no more. Those who 
went back on the sixth day knew how many they had left following, 
but of those whom they left on the sixth day not one returned. [Who, 
then, saw Enoch ascend to heaven?] And on the seventh day Enoch 
ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, with chariot and horses of fire. 
[Let us see how that was seen.] And it came to pass after Enoch had 
gone up to heaven [Nowadays we would call it a case of 'mysterious 
disappearance"] that the people started out to search for those men 
who had followed after him. And on the spot where they had left 
them they found deep snow and ice. They cut through the ice and 
they found there the dead bodies of the men [Who were last with 
Enoch, saw him 'ascend to heaven in a whirlwind, with chariot and 
horses of fire,' and who, after being found dead, told the searchers of 
it] for whom they were searching, but Enoch they did not find. 
[Therefore they concluded he had 'ascended to heaven,' instead of 
thinking it might be a case of 'mysterious disappearance' in some 
snow hidden ravine or the like, into which he fell and could not get 
oiit, and the wind blowing the snow obliterated all traces of him.] 
Therefore is this the meaning of the words of Scripture, 'And Enoch 
walked with God and he was not' ('he was not where search was 
made".) [Of course not, how could they otherwise say that he had 
'ascended to heaven,' if he had' been 'where search was made?'] 'for 
God had taken him' Gen. 5:24.") 115:20-21. To be candid about it, 
I tell you that I believe many of the Bible stories rest on no better 
foundation than does this of Enoch ascending to heaven, when the 
"portals of Heaven were closed, and could be opened only by the 
merits of His [Jesus Christ] Passion and Cross." And I tell you if 
it had not been for the light of reason and understanding coming to 
my rescue. I would to-day be an atheist, after reading such contradic- 
tions as that Enoch ascended to heaven, and at the same time be told 
that the "portals of Heaven were closed," and reading about the other 
contradictions which have been pointed out in tliis book. "As to his 
body, man belongs to the material, as to his immortal soul, to the 
spiritual world." 102:20S. If that is the case, and I admit that, then 
would it not be putting the material into the spiritual world, if c ur 
bodies, which are material, were resiirrected and taken into heaven, 



268 

the "spiritual world?" There is no more tfutli in a literal resurrection 
of the body than there is in Resurrection. I have already stated why 
reincarnation is impossible, and that is because soul substance being 
the same in each human being, one soul can not occupy the body of 
another without displacing the soul already there, just as water can 
not be poured into a jar already full of water without displacing the 
water already in the jar. And when it is said that the adult soul of 
an adept would enter the body of an infant it makes it doubly impos- 
sible, for in that case the adult soul would have to contract itself until 
it was reduced to the size of a child's body, which is as impossible 
for one to do as it is to contract one's adult body to a size small enough 
to wear a baby's clothes. '"The adept states beforehand in what child, 
when and where to be born, he is going to incarnate, and he very 
rarely fails. We say very rarely, because there are some accidents of 
physical nature which cannot be entirely guarded against; and it is 
not absolutely certain that, with all the foresight even an adept may 
pring to bear upon the matter, the child he may choose to become, in 
his re-incarnated state, may attain physical maturity successfully. 
And, meanwhile, in the body, the adept is relatively helpless. Out of 
the body he is just what he has been ever since he became an adept; 
but as regards the new body he has chosen to inhabit, he must let it 
grow up in the ordinary course of Nature, and educate it by ordi- 
nary processes, and initiate it by the regular oscult method into 
adeptship, before he has got a body fully ready again for occult work 
on the physical plane. * * * AH these jjrocesses are immensely 
simplified, it is true, by the peculiar spiritual force working within; 
but at first, in the child's body, the adept soul is certainly cramped 
and embarrassed, [Well, why should he not be? I think if a man 
went down town with nothing but baby clothes on him he ought to 
feel cramped and embarrassed," unless he just escaped from a lunatic 
asylum] and, as ordinary imagination might suggest, very uncomfort- 
able and ill at ease." 116:211, 212. [Especially if it were zero 
weather, and he was to be a door-keeper at a woman's club meeting, 
he, no doubt, would feel "very uncomfortable and ill at ease," with 
nothing but baby clothes on.] "The doctrine of Reincarnation when 
properly understood will appear as a suijplemeut to the theory of 
Evolution. Without this most important supplement the Evolution 
theory will never be complete and perfect. Evolution explains the 
purpose of life. Therefore both must go hand in hand to make the 



269 

explanation satisfactory in every respect." 117:41, 42. Well, as I 
hare proved the error and impossibility of Reincarnation. I will like- 
wise demolish the theory of the Evolution of Man, and as the resur- 
rection of the body is also an erroneous doctrine, we have nothing left 
but the spirit world where we go to direct on the Last Day, when we 
lay off our earthly habitation which is to be dissolved into dust, and 
return to the earth from which it was taken. What the nature of the 
spirit world is I do not know, and as there seems to be a veil between 
this life and the next through which we cannot penetrate, I believe 
that if we lead a good, virtuous, and noble life here, after the pattern 
shown us by Jesus — not of some so-called saint, who flew to the desert 
or cloister to make sure of his or her salvation, and let the rest go to 
the devil — we need not fear nor be solicitous about what the future 
world has in store for us. Grod has given us a reason and a free-will, 
with power to choose, and He will let us, therefore, reap what we sow. 
No doubt the Spiritualist will take exception to my statement that 
there seems to be a veil between this life and the next through which 
we cannot penetrate," but I ask. Why do we not receive messages di- 
rect from our dei^arted ones, whom we loved and who loved us in this 
life, instead of through a "'Medium" who is a stranger, probably, to 
the ones from whom they claim to receive messages? Does it seem 
reasonble that a beloved wife, who has de^jarted from this plane of 
existence, would, if she had the power to do so, refuse to appear to her 
husband, who was dearly loved, and tell him of her condition in the 
new plane of existence, yet is willing to impart such infc-rmation to a 
'"Medium" who is probably an entire stranger to both her and her 
husband? Why does she not appear to her husband — if she cannot 
materialize herself in broad daylight, but must always have darkness 
to do so in, in "seances," in dreams and repeatedly tell him of her new 
plane of existence, until she has received a sign from him that he is 
convinced of the truthfulness of her claims? That the spirit world 
exists I firmly believe, but that it is as theologians would have us be- 
lieve it is seems impossible if the following is true: "His [St. Martin] 
great faith and ardent love made him equal to the Apostles in the per- 
formance of miracles; his tirst was the raising to life a catechuuian 
who had died without baptism." 5:918. Now, if is true that un bap- 
tised infants "a day old, as well as the adult," are "enemies of God," 
(31:805,) this unbaptised catechuman could not have gone to heaven, 
nor nor to purgatory — for in that case he would eventually get to 



270 

heaven, and to admit that would nullify the claim that without bap- 
tism one cannot enter heaven — and as there is but one other place — 
hell — left he must have gone to it. And if he did, then, what becomes 
of the doctrine that out of hell there is no redemption, if that unbap- 
tized catechuman was recalled from there? It is either a fable, that 
reputed miracle, or else the teachings of the Church about the nature 
of the future world is not true. Which will you have? Both cannot 
be true. And to say that in the cemetery "the dead sleep in the peace 
of God, whilst waiting for the resurrection of the body," (36:17,) and 
that, therefore, the person can be raised to life again by a Saint, then 
what becomes of the doctrine that one may suffer in purgatory between 
the day of one's so-called death and the Resurrection Day? If the 
"dead sleep in the peace of God," in the cemetery, then why this ex- 
penditure of millions of dollars — as already shown elsewhere — that 
are spent annually for masses for the re]pose of the souls in this country 
alone? Now that it is seen that "as to his body, man belongs to the 
material world, as to his immortal soul, to the spiritual world," (102:208,) 
and as matter — flesh and blood — "cannot enter the kingdom of God," 
then is not j)hysical death, the laying off of our earthly liabitation, the 
separation of the husk from the ear of corn, a necessary process in 
our passing from the meterial plane of existence to the spiritual plane of 
existence ? And if so, then what becomes of the doctrine of the Fall, which 
is supposed to have caused God to change his laws from zion-physical 
death to physical death? It becomes only more "verbiage," does it not? 
To say that j^hysical death is dreaded because it was not the original 
design of God is not true according to the following: "The universal 
testimony of soldiers who have been in battle is to the effect that the 
time when fear is experienced is just before the action commences. 
When the first gun is fired, all fear vanishes, and the soldier often per- 
forms feats of the most desperate valor and evinces the most reckless 
courage. If wounded, he feels nothing until the battle is over and all 
excitement is gone. It is a merciful provision of nature that the 
nearer we approach death, the less we fear it." 22:184. Death, then, 
was designed by God, as much as birth was designed by Him, and is 
the "final preparation, therefore, for the inheriting of Eternal Life," 
an "abandonment of the non-eternal elements," which "must be un- 
loosed and dissociated from the higher elements," (21:248) — the Soul; 
a "passing from one state of existence to another, from one deijartment 
to another in the same universe" (39:67); an "exodus * * * 



271 

unmooring * * * home-coming," a going to the "Father's house" 
where there "are many mansions," (118:771, March 29, 1902,) and we 
will never need to be united again with the "husks," from which we 
were separated at, what is called, death, in order to "enjoy inconceiva- 
ble blessedness and glory," or to suffer pains in the future life that are 
"greater than all pains of earth put together." Of course. Christian 
Scientists will hardly agree with me when I say that physical death 
was originally designed by the Creator, for some of them seem to hold 
the belief that "some time the world will have grown to such spiritual 
heights that immortality will be impotent, and there will be no death." 
58:100, Oct. 18, 1900. If such a state of "spiritual heights" should 
ever be attained that "mortality will be impotent," it would tend to 
disprove any assertion that death was originaly designed, but the 
attainment of such "spiritual heights" will never be reached that will 
make "mortality impotent," any more than such "spiritual heights" 
will ever be attained that will do away with the belief that "food does 
not effect the real existence of man," (109:387,) or that it will ever 
produce in us the belief that "generation rests on no sexual basis," 
(109:274,) and thereby nullify the injunction of Gen. 1:27-28. That 
there will be those who will dissent from my belief of death being 
designed by God, I do not doubt, or that there is to be no literal resur- 
rection of the body of dust, yet I am so firmly convinced of the truth 
of those two propositions that I was constrained to proclaim them, 
even though it should cause a temporary shock and ui^set their long 
cherished beliefs on those subjects. 

The next subject we will consider will be the Bible. 



CHAHTER XIII. 



THE BIBLE. 

The subject which will be considered in this chapter is one which 
will concern most of the Orthodox Churches, and I hope that by at- 
tacking the Bible in the way in which I intend to do it, it will induce 
the different religious denominations to cast aside their difference and 
unite in a common fold as a means for united action against my on- 
slaught on the so-called "Word of Grod" — the Bible. 

It is not only because I might want to use this as the best method 
possible for bringing about Christian unity, but also because the Bible, 
taken as a whole, dishonors God, and degrades God's noblest and best 
creature, woman. I will attempt to make it apparent to you that 
much that is regarded as "hard problems of Scripture," is as much a 
human invention as are many things in the Roman Catholic Church, 
which I have already pointed out to the reader in the foregoing 
chapters. 

We will assume that God is unchangeable; that Man was specially 
created and did not evolve from an animal, as so-called "Reverends"' 
and Scientists would have us believe. Assuming these to be facts, we 
mtist assume that what once was a proper standard of morals for man- 
kind, made and given by God, must be the standard fur all time. If 
it was a sin to do a certain thing at one time it will always be a sin to 
do the same thing at another time, and any covenant of God that was 
binding on one at one time will always be binding on one at another 
time. 

To say that things commanded and forbidden under the Old Dis- 
pensation are not necessarily binding or of force in the New Dispen- 
sation would make God either changeable, or else not Omniscient and 
All-wise, or else we -would have to admit the claims of the Atheists 
and Agnostic Evolutionists that Man is a transmuted animal, none of 
which I concede. We must, therefore, set them down as merely 
human inventions, when we come across passages of Scripture which 
contain injunctions, commands, etc., which seemingly contradict each 
other, and which are against all reason and common sense, dishonor- 
ing to God, degrading and insulting to woman, and which give so-called 



273 

infidels and scientists favorite points to attack. To say that we have 
no other alternative left us but to regard the Bible as either all true 
or all false is an unreasonable and narrow proposition. And it is in 
trying to defend the Bible as being *'all true" that is the cause of the 
large number of unbelievers in the world to-day. 

The Bible cannot be successfully defended for the simple reason 
that it is not "all true," and I am in favor of so purging and revising 
it that there would be no more question about it what it did and did 
not mean. If the word "day" in the first chapter of Genesis is now 
to be understood as "periods of undefined length," (119:1,) "indefinite 
periods of time," (120:7,) "periods of time of unknown duration," 
(102:36,) why then let us say so in the Bible, and no longer teach it 
in the Catechism as "days" which the catechumen understands to be 
days of twenty-four hours, (30:7,) so that if the scientist's child is 
taught the Bible in the public school — a condition which will be 
brought about when all Christians are once united — it will be taught 
the truth, and to which no reasonable scientist, who has the welfare of 
the child at heart, can object. Likewise let us purge from the Bible 
Gen. 19:30-56, and passages of like nature. 

Does any one suppose that if a young person reads those pas- 
sages just referred to that it will help such a one's moral's? Decidedly 
not. Well, then, why should we be afraid to tamper with the Bible 
and cut out such passages? If you want a history of a town, city, or 
nation to put into your child's hands would you want it to contain all 
the moral leprosy of the people? If not, then why should a book, 
that is supposed to contain the Word of God, contain the history of 
the moral leprosy of a people whose offenders were not punished for 
it? Was Abraham punished for what he did in Gen, 30:1-12? Are 
not those some of the passages that are degrading to woman? Did 
life to woman, in the Old Dispensation, mean only feeding and breed- 
ing? 

What woman to-day, who is childless, would resort to any such 
means, as are mentioned in those passages referred to, in order to have 
a child she could palm oflp as hers? Was a woman less a woman in 
those days than she is to-day? 

Here is the way the Catholic Church tries to explain and defend 
the bigamy or poligamy of the patriarchs. "It was a common custom, 
in the days of the patriarchs, for a man to have more than one wife. 
This was permitted by God, partly because they and their descendants 



274 

would hardly have been satisfied with one marriage, [His 'chosen' 
people at that,] partly because bigamy was a means of promoting the 
increase of the ijeople of Israel, typical of the future increase of the 
children of Grod." 5:224. And that, too, in the face of the following: 
"Over this civilized world we find the ratio of births is always one 
hundred and six males to one hundred females." 121:42. 

According to that, then, polyandry — that is, more than one hus- 
band for a woman — should have been the practice if all men would 
"have been satisfied," like the "chosen" patriarchs had to be "satis- 
fied." No wonder, then, that "their descendants" afterwards, when 
they had a battle with another nation, that they "put to death the 
women, that have carnally known men. But the girls, and all the 
women that are virgins, save for yourselves," (Num. 41-17-18,) for 
otherwise they "would hardly have been satisfied." Let us ask, How 
did the Israelites know what woman had or had not "carnally known . 
men?" Can any one tell, by seeing a crowd or street full of women in 
a city or country where one is a stranger, who are married and who 
are not, or who have "carnally known men?,' How did the Israelites, 
then know which of the women, who were strangers to them, had or 
had not "carnally known men?" Did they insult them by a physical 
examination, or did they ask them such an insulting question as to 
whether or not they "had carnally known men," because everything is 
supposed to be fair in war? Will some Bible defender please answer 
that? And if it cannot be answered without involving one's self in 
difficulties, then why should we hesitate to purge the Bible of such 
woman degrading passages as may be found in it? 

Let us have a Bible that means what it says. If "concubines" 
mean wives of an "inferior degree," (Gen. 25:6, 35:22,) of "servile ex- 
traction," of an "inferior condition," (2 Kings 5:13,) as foot notes ex- 
plain them, then why not say so in the Bible ? But does it really 
mean that "concubines" are such wives? Read Gen. 35:22 and see if it 
means that, if such things were practical nowadays? Again, when it 
says that "David took more concubines and wives of Jerusalem, after 
he was come from Hebron," (I. Kings 15:5, Standard Edition,) and 
that David did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, and 
turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days 
of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite," (102:56,) then, 
If God is unchangeable, and man was man from the beginning of 
creation, why have not the Utah Mormons a right to have plural 



275 

wives if they want to have them, and if polygamy, as practiced by 
David, "was right in the eyes of Jehovah?" 

If polygamy "was right in the eyes of Jehovah" in David's time, 
then why is it not "right in the eyes of Jehovah" now, if God is the 
same yesterday, today and forever, and mankind did not evolve from 
an animal? And again, is it not an insult to womankind to say that 
David — a King — could take "more concubines and wives" when he 
already had a queenly wife ? What would be thought of it if a King, 
or Emperor, or President who would today marry wives of "inferior 
degree," "servile extraction," "inferior condition," after they were 
already married to a woman of equal standing with them? Would it 
not be an insult to noble and true womanhood to compel her to share 
the afPections of her husband with another woman or women? What 
noble or true man would care to share the affections of his wife with 
another man or men today? And is woman nothing more to a man 
than an object for feeding and breeding. 

How do you suppose the Kingly David introduced his wives in 
court circles? Did he say. This is Mrs. Kitchen Mechanic David, my 
wife of "inferior degree?" or Mrs. Pot Slinger David, my wife of 
"servile extraction?" or Mrs. Biscuit Shooter David, my wife of "in- 
ferior condition?" Supposing a man today wanted to do as David 
did, because it was "right in the eyes of Jehovah" — and it would have 
to be so, if God is unchangeable and it ever was right — would want 
to marry his wife's servant girl, because she is of "servile extraction," 
do you suppose his wife would consent to such a thing? And do you 
suppose woman was of a different nature in David's time than she is 
today because she seems to have made no protest to David's conduct 
in taking "more wives?" 

The sum and substance of the whole thing is that David was a 
shameless, sensual, cruel, murderous, villainous, vindictive, despot, 
who did as he pleased, just as we have in history other characters of 
the same kind who were characterized as I have characterized David, 
and who shielded their infamous conduct under the blasphemous 
assumption that it was according to as the "Lord commanded," or as 
"Jehovah spoke," or "in the name of the most merciful God," etc. 
Was David's conduct, as given in 2 Kings 6:20-22, "right in the eyes 
of Jehovah," because it says that David "turned not aside from any- 
thing He commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the 
matter of Uriah the Hettite?" If not. then what do we want with the 
history of such a character in the Bible? 

The fact that David was punished only for his conduct in the 



276 

matter of Uriah the Hittite, makes him a very poor example to be held 
before us as a warning that sin will not go unpunished, if his polyg- 
amy, his shamelessness, his imprecatory prayers, etc., "was right in 
the eyes of Jehovah," and that he "turned not aside from anything 
save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. 

Then, the Catholic Church would have us believe that in the 108th 
(or 109th in Standard Edition) Psalm "David, in the person of Christ, 
prayeth against his persecutors." Is that true? Read that Psalm 
and then compare it with Christ's prayer on the cross, "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do," (Luke 23:34.) and then see if 
there is anything in the two prayers that would indicate that they 
were uttered by the same character? I say it is a God dishonoring 
blasphemy to make the words of David the words of Christ! 

No doubt the Psalm referred to here is one of those that Dr. 
Dowie is thankful to say he does "not have to sing." "I do not want 
to sing some of the Psalms of David, for they do not fit me; and I do 
not want to ask God to do some of the things he used to ask God to 
do to his enemies." 122:8. Ha! how God-inspired David must have 
been, if some of the Psalms "do not fit" the Doctor? That one inci- 
dent alone ought to destroy the doctrine of the "plenary inspiration" 
of the Bible, should it not? a. f. y. But that is not all. 

"Three thousand, three hundred years ago, when God called His 
people out of Egypt, He gave them certain laws, and Moses gave them 
a great many other laws that God Almighty never gave them" 
(123:21); "Christ set aside Moses, Solomon and others, even in mat- 
ters where they claimed divine direction." 112:4.) Is that true? If 
it ig^ — and I also say it is true, — then what becomes of the claims of 
a "plenary inspired" and "infallible" Bible? "Oh," but it will proba- 
bly be said, as Dr. Dowie says, "that the Old Testament does not bind 
the Church of Christ." 22:8. Why does it not? Here is the Doctor's 
reason: "The Old Testament * * * binds no Christian to-day. 
Why ? * * * The Old Will is the name given to it by the Greeks. 
The early Christians used to call it, and it is called rightfully, the Old 
Will. And the New Testament is called the New Will. * * * 
Now you see there are two 'Wills,' the Old Will and the New Will, 
the Old Testament and the New. Now let every one think who 
listens, and I hope you are all thinkers. [Oh, yes, but what kind? 
You know there are what we call 'shallow' thinkers.] Ask this ques- 
tion of yojirselves: Suppose you made a will twenty years ago, 



277 

[Because you are not omniscient, and cannot know what the future may 
turn up] and you made another will last Saturday; of how much 
value, or power, or binding character, would the will which you had 
made twenty years ago be after you had made the new will last Satur- 
day? You all know the answer. The answer is this: That the new 
will completely overrides, abrogates, and nullifies every provision of 
the old will, unless the new will re-enacts the provisions of the old 
will." 22:8. That is a good illustration when applied to finite, non- 
all-wise, changeable Man, but how about it when applied to an omnis- 
cient, foreknowing, and unchangeable Being, and Man was Man from 
the beginning of creation? 

Has God changed the standard of morals, so that the centenarian 
who lived fifty years under the "Old Will" and fifty years under the 
"New Will" would as to-day take one of his "stubborn and unruly" 
sons to the ancients of the city, and "to the gate of judgment" and 
accuse him, and the "people of the city shall stone him: and he shall 
die," (Deut. 21:18-21,) and as to-morrow, under the "New Will," take 
another of his "stubborn and unruly" sons before the "gate of judg- 
ment" — a judge — and the judge would either send him to the reform 
school or parole him? And if so, why this great change, if God is 
unchangeable and Man was always Man, and did not evolve from an 
animal and progress upwards from savagery to barbarism and from 
barbarism to civilization, as Evolutionists would have us believe? It 
is because God did not command the stoning to death of an unruly 
son, but because it was only a human invention of Man, just as "Hail! 
Holy Oil," "Hail! Holy Chrism," are only human inventions of the 
Catholic Church, that under the so-called "Old Will" an unruly son 
was stoned to death and under the "New Will" the unruly son is either 
sent to the reform school, or else is paroled, as is the case with some 
in some large cities nowadays. 57: July 3, 1902. 

Did God, in the "Old Will," make circumcision of the flesh a 
"perpetual covenant?" Gen. ] 7:7-13. If so, how then, can the "New 
Will" "override, abrogate, and nullify" a thing or provision that was 
made "perpetual,' — for everlasting? Did not St. Paul, in the "New 
Will," completely "override, abrogate, and nullify" the "perpetual" — 
everlasting— provisions of the "Old Will" of circumcision, when he 
[The arch-heretic to the Jewish Church, just as I am to the Orthodox 
Church] said: "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is noth- 
ing: but the observation of the commandments of God. I. Cor. 7:19. 



278 

Circumcision never was more than a species of fanaticism, just like 
the scourging was fanaticism which some of the so-called saints gave 
to their bodies that their souls may become the more beautiful only to 
take a back seat on the "General Resurrection [re-creation] Day," 
when their despised body here shall be made so "glorious" there as to 
put the soul of it in the shade in comparison with it. Well, Mr. 
Dowie, what kind of "thinkers" did you have in your audience that 
day when you "bumboozled" them with your "Old Will" and "New 
Will" racket? 

We will now consider one of what is called a "hard problem of 
Scripture," namely, the "the slaughter of Canaanites" and others. In 
a pamphlet entitled "Hard Problems of Scripture," by R. A. Torrey, 
D. D., this may be found: "There is perhaps nothing in the Bible over 
which more intelligent readers have stumbled, and over which more 
infidels have gloated and gloried, than God's command that certain 
peoples should be utterly exterminated, sparing neither sex nor age. 
Men, women and children were to be slain. Take, for example, Deut. 
20:16, 17. This is perhaps the most unmistakable declaration of 
God's will concerning certain nations. Here we read: 'Of the cities 
of these peoples, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, 
thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth; but thou shalt utterly 
destroy; the Hettite [Who had his wife defiled by a "chosen" servant 
of God, who "did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, * * * 
all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hettite"] 
and the Amonite, the Canaanite. and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the 
Jebusite; [and if there had been Dowieites and other ites whom the 
Psalms would not all fit, they too, probably] as Jehoviah thy God 
hath commanded thee.' * * * The command to exterminate the 
Canaanites was a command big with mercy and love. It was mercy 
and love first of all to the Israelites. Unless the Canaanites were ex- 
terminated they would be themselves exterminated." 119:15, 17. 

Let me ask, What more right had the Israelites te the land of Ca- 
naan than the Canaanites had? Were not all human beings God's creat- 
ures? If so, what more right had the Israelites to a land, promised to 
Abraham's descendants about four hundred years before by a partial, 
vindictive, cruel, murderous, changeable, whimsical, unreasonable 
Jehovah, [Who, I am glad to say, is not the God who is.] a land that 
was filled with "great and goodly cities," which they did "not build," 
with "Houses full of riches," which they did "not set up;" "cisterns" 



279 

which they did "not dig;" "vineyards and vineyards" which they did 
"not plant," (Deut. 6:10, 11,) than the white men, about four hundred 
years after discovering America, would have had in despoiling the 
Indians of their possessions, even though some tribes should have 
sunk to the very depth of moral depravity and degredation? 

Why did not "Jehovah" give the Israelites, who, in the wilderness 
already turned from Jehovah, made a "molten calf" (Ex. 32:4-8,) and 
adored it as their God, and who "have quickly forsaken the way," 
(Deut. 9:12); who are "stiff-necked" (Deut. 9:13) who "will go a 
whoring after strange gods" (Deut. 31:16); who "are a wicked and 
perverse nation" (Deut. 32:5); who "turned again, and committed for- 
nication with Baalim, and made a covenant with Baal, that he should 
be their god" (Judges 8:33); "the sinful nation, a people laden with 
iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly" (Isa. 1:4); 
whose "priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, * * * full 
of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean" (Isa. 28:7-8); 
who "defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination" (Jer. 
2:7); whose gods are "according to the number of thy cities * * * 
O Judah" (Jer, 2:28); who "played the harlot with many lovers" (Jer. 
3:12); who "polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wick- 
edness" (Jer. 3:2(; "backsliding children" (Jer. 3:14); who "commit- 
ted adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the harlots' houses 
* * * every one neighed after his neighbor's wife" (Jer. 5:7-8); 
[Oh, how pure these "chosen" people must have felt alongside the 
"abominations" of the Canaanites] who "from the prophet even unto 
the priest every one dealeth falsely" (Jer. 8:10); who "according to 
the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah; and according to the 
number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to the shame- 
ful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal" (Jer. 11:13); whose 
"prophets prophesy lies in my name" (Jer. 14:14); "surely, if I sent 
thee [Son of Man, Ezekiel] to them, [A people of a strange speech, 
who are outside the "chosen" fold] they would hearken unto thee. 
But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not 
hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead 
and of a stiff heart" (Eze. 3:6-8); "an evil and adulterous generation" 
(Matt. 12:39); who will "not believe in me, for all the signs which 1" 
have wrought among them" (Num. 14:11); and "if the mighty works 
had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would have 
remained until this day" (Matt. 11:23), [What a fine lot of "chosen" 



280 

people! "Auserwehlte volk Grottes!") a land uninhabited, so that 
there would not have been anyone there to "contaminate" them? 

After reading the foregoing apiDellations of the Israelites, would 
it, in the end, have made very much difference after all if the Canaan - 
ites had "exterminated" the Israelites for despoiling them of their 
lawful possessiens when the Israelites invaded their country? 

It is strange, indeed, that Jehovah should have displayed so much 
solicitude for the above described Israelites' welfare, by commanding 
that other creatures of God should be "exterminated," that Jehovah's 
"chosen" people should not become "contaminated," because "through 
Israel He planned to bless the world," (119;17,) yet seemed so indif- 
ferent about the welfare of "just and holy" (30:7) Adam and Eve, and 
their descendants, that He did not "exterminate" the devil or else had 
him chained down in hell so that he could not have gotten to Adam 
and Eve to "contaminate" them and plunge the whole world into mis- 
ery, suffering and woe as a result of their own sin. 

Strange, indeed, must that Mosaic Grod be to "choose" and evince 
so much solicitude for one lot of creatures, described above, as against 
another lot of His creatures, who, in the end, could not possibly have 
been any worse than His "chosen" people turned out to be. 

Here is some more defending the slaughtering of peoples, which 
shows that the whole thing, purporting to be a command of God, is 
only the doings of the mouth-pieces of a people described above. 
"But may not the women be si^ared? They were the prime source of 
contamination (Num. 31:15-16.) Depraved women are more danger- 
ous than dejjraved men," therefore, "love and mercy for Israel de- 
manded just what God commanded. But not only love and mercy for 
Israel demanded it, love and mercy for the whole race [Like Adam 
and Eve Bnd their descendants, for instance from whom the devil was 
not kept] demanded it." 119:17. 

Yes, if Jehovah had only manifested a little of the "love and 
mercy" for Adam and Eve, which He showed for the Israelites, and 
had "exterminated" the devil or else chained him down in hell, where 
he is supposed to have been already chained with "everlasting chains," 
(Jude 7,) after he was cast out of heaven, there would probably have 
been no need of Him planning "to bless the world through Israel," 
(119:17,) such an Israel as the Bible describes. And again, if de- 
praved women "were the prime source of contamination (Num. 31:15- 
16,)" (119:17,) then why should they save for themselves those of 



281 

them that were "girls, and all the women that are virgins," and who 
have not "carnally known men?" Num. 31:17:18. And how did they 
know what girls and women, who were strangers to them, had or had 
not "carnally known men?" 

The whole thing, when sifted down, shows that it was only the 
doings of sensual, shameless, covetous, murderous, vindictive, merci- 
less, and cruel men, who, to justify their infamous crimes, would 
"bumfoozle" their followers into believing that it was as the "'Lord 
commanded," thus making Grod father their deeds. Again, w'hat be- 
comes of the preserving grace of God if one can not remain uncon- 
taminated in the midst of "abominations?" 

I remember when I went to the city from the farm, I went down 
town of an evening or two to see political i^arades and would not get 
home until after ten o'clock. On my way home different women 
would ask me to go home with them. Now, I knew, even though I 
was only a "green corn-tassel," that they did not want me to go with 
them to protect them from "insults," and being then a member of the 
"chosen generation, a purchased i^eople," (12:267,) just as the Israe- 
lites believed they were "chosen" by God, I would have had "warrant 
of Scripture" to "exterminate" them, would I not? 

Supposing I had "exterminated" two or three of them, could I 
have justified my acts in court, by saying that being one of the 
"chosen" people of God I had just as much right to "exterminate" 
them, for they were "depraved" and might have "contaminated" me 
had I not "exterminated" them, as the Israelites had to "exterminate" 
the "depraved" Canaanites? Hardly. Well, then, how can anyone 
successfully defend the infamous crimes of the Israelites which they 
perpetrated on the Cananites and other ites? 

Were the deeds committed by the Israelites against the Canaan- 
ites in obedience to "God's commands," (98:187,) it would indeed be 
a "great blasphemy" in nie to examine them to "condemn them," 
(98:143.) but they were ^/Oi^ done in obedience to "God's commands." 
If God is the same yesterday, today and forever, is "no respecter of 
persons," and that in "every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh 
justice, is acceptable to him," (Acts 10:34, 35,) and He desires not the 
death of a sinner, but that he repent and live, then it is absolutely 
impossible to attribute the deeds of the Israelites to the commands of 
the God who is. 

How can a sinner repent and live, if he is deprived of the opportunity 



282 

of hearing the JWord of God — and therefore cannot know what the 
Word of God is — when he is barred from entering the Church? 
"The Ammonite and the Moabite, even after the tenth generation, 
shall not enter into the church of the Lord forever." Deut. 23:3. 

Will any one dare say that that was God's command? If not, 
then why attempt to defend and justify the other practices of the 
Israelites as having been done in accordance with God's commands? 
Compare "thou shalt not make peace with them, [Ammonite and 
Moabite] neither shalt thou seek their prosperity all the days of thy 
life forever," (Deut. 23:6,) with "Love your enemies, do good to them 
that hate you," (Matt. 5:44,) and then see if you can find a resemb- 
lance in the two voices as coming from the same source — God? 

Are you not about ready to purge the Bible of those God dis- 
honoring blasphemies, and relegate their narratives to Josephus' 
"Antiquities of the Jews," which is about all the Old Testament is 
anyway? It is, in the main, but a history of a people who believed 
they were "chosen" by God, just as the Catholic Church says her 
members are a "chosen generation, -* * * a holy nation, a pur- 
chased people," (12:267,) or as Mrs. Eddy says to Christian Scientists 
that "Ye are a chosen people." 124:152. If you are a non-Catholic 
do you believe the claims of the Catholic Church, or, if no Christian 
Scientist, do you believe the claim their leader makes for them? If 
you do, then why do you not become a member of the Catholic 
Church, or of the Christian Science Church? Do you not want to 
belong to the assemblies of God's "chosen?" And if you do not be- 
lieve the claims of either of the two Churches, then why do you 
believe that the Israelites were a "chosen" people any more so than 
any other nation was? 

If the Israelites had been extermined instead of the Canaanites 
and the survivors had written a history they could, with as much 
justification, have claimed that the Israelites, as described in the 
Bible, were a people who deserved to be "exterminated" on account 
of the "abominations" which they practiced. And if their literature 
had come down to us instead of that of the Israelites we would prob- 
ably be showing the same veneration for it as we now do for the 
literature of the Israelites. 

If, during the beginning of the Reformation, the Bishop of 
Brandenburg had succeeded in his resolve of not laying his "head 
down in peace" until he had "cast Martin [Luther) into the fire like 



283 

this fagot" which he, as he spoke, "cast on the blazing hearth," (15: 
89,) and having thereby removed the principal actor of the Reforma- 
tion, and the Reformation had remained throttled unto this day, do 
you suppose the Catholic Church could rightfully have claimed that 
God was with her in "exterminating" the Reformation, as much so as 
the Israelites claimed God was fighting their battles? Or, if Luther 
had succeeded in the following: "If this rage of the Romanists con- 
tinue, no other remedy appears to me than that emperor, kings and 
princes should arm themselves and attack this pest [Which was like 
the "abominations" of the Canaanites to the Israelites] of the earth, 
and decide its affairs no longer with words, but with iron. [Like the 
Israelites "decided" the affairs of the Canaanites "with iron," that is, 
slaughtering them as Luther would have done with the "Romanists" 
if his followers had obeyed him like the Israelites obeyed their 
leaders.] If we punish thieves by the rope, murderers by the sword 
and heretics by fire, why do we not attack these teachers of perdition, 
[The "abominations" of the Canaanites] these cardinals, these popes 
and the whole swarm of the Roman Sodom [The "abominations" of 
the Canaanites which would "contaminate" the Israelites if the 
Canaanites were not "exterminated," and the good looking virgins 
"save for yourselves," (Num. 31:18,) which Luther, probably, would 
likewise have done with the good looking Nuns.] that unceasingly 
corrupt God's church, [Do you hear that, you Catholics? You "cor- 
rupt God's church," just like the Canaanites "corrupted" God's church 
when the Israelites were the "chosen" people of God!] and why do 
we not wash our hands in their blood," (86:20.) [No wonder a heathen 
said to a missionary: "See how those Christians love one another," 
when they were holding such love feasts as described above!] and the 
Catholic Church had been , 'exterminated" to this day as the Israelites 
"exterminated" the Canaanites, and the literature of the Reformation 
only had come down to us, could not the Protestants, with equal justi- 
fication, claim that God was fighting their battles for them, just as 
the Israelites claimed their God — Jehovah — fought theirs and was on 
their side? 

Yes, and if the Catholic Church had been "exterminated in the 
manner Luther would liked to have seen it done, as described above, 
would not the Mormons, probably, have claimed that another prophecy 
of the Book of Mormon had been fulfilled? "It [Book of Mormon] 
speaks of the rapid downfall of 'the mother of harlots' [The "swarm of 



284 

the Roman Sodom," of Luther] soon after the coming forth of 'the 
book' an event which has been transpiring since 1848, and in a strik- 
ing manner since August 18th, 1870, when the Pope lost all temporal 
rule and power." 125:148. That is a nice opinion the so-called "Lat- 
ter Day Saints of Jesus Christ" have of your Church, you Catholics, 
is it not? I wonder what sort of an opinion the the "Last Day Saints 
of Jesus Christ" will have of the whole Christian world, if the "Chris- 
tians" keep on "loving one another," as history records they have been 
"loving one another" in the past? 

I am beginning to think, since I read the opinion and the language 
the different denominations have made use of in speaking of one an- 
other, that Jesus was wrongly reported when He said: "By this shall 
all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for 
another," (John 13:35,) but that it shoixld have been, "By this shall 
all men know that you are my discijDles, if you have hatred one for 
another," 

At the time of the "Boxer" uprising, was that another manifesta- 
tion of the Amalekite [Canaanite] spirit which required the taking up 
of arms of "iron" to smite them at the "command of God?" Yet such 
was the belief of the head of one the leading nations of the world, if 

the following is true: "A Sermon by * * * Discourse 

Upon 'IJae Duty and Power of Intercession. * * * 'And it came 
to pass when Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed; and when he 
let down his hand Amalek prevailed,' — Exodus xviii, 2. * * * Who 
does not understand what our text seeks to say to us today ? ( July 29, 
1900.) Once more the heathenish Amalekite sjjirit uplifts itself furi- 
ously in far-off Asia. With great power and cunning craftiness, with 
fire and sword it seeks to bar the passage and the progress of European 
commerce and civilization, [civilization, which, probably, means the 
best and latest improved '.Grospel spreaders" with 18 to 16 in. bore 
needle guns in the hold] and to stem the victorious tide of Christian 
faith I Should have said "faiths," for there are 300 or more of them] 
and Christian morals. [As for instance, the opium and liquor habit 
which were brought to the sober "heathenish Amalekites" by Euro- 
pean and American civilization and Christian faiths.] Once more 
sounds out the command of God, [Like of old to the "chosen" people] 
'Choose out men, go out and fight against Amalek.' " Daily Paper. 

It may be seen then that God does not command any nation to 
take up arms against another to subdue them for the sake of religion 



285 

and morals. Such a command would impeach His own power and 
goodness towards us for not destroying the devil, if it is the devil 
who is the cause of all our diseases and sickness and sins as Dr. Dowie 
claims. 106:15, 17. 

At the time of a certain war both sides, in the beginning, prayed 
to God and claimed He was on their side. "The fate of liberty and 
civilization depends upon our success. Soldiers, let each of us do our 
duty, and the God of battles will be with us." [Yet they lost.] That 
was from the head of our nation. This from the other: "We are 
resolved like our forefathers, placing full trust in God, [Because they 
had the heaviest battalion; [They also won] to accept the battle for 
the defense of the ." 126:326. 

I trust I have said enough now to satisfy any rational, fair-minded 
person that God did not command the Israelites to "exterminate" the 
Canaanites, and that God has nothing to do with wars, or that He 
favors one people or nation more so than another. And I say it is a 
blasphemy to say that He does! 

Having settled that point, then what becomes of the Bible narra- 
tive that scientists say was an impossibility, for it would have dis- 
arranged the orbits of all the planets of the universe had such an oc- 
currence taken place as the following: "And the sun and the moon 
stood still, till the people [The Israelites, of which I gave you already 
the Bible reputation of them] revenged themselves of their enemies, 
[Jesus said: "Love your enemies," which proves irrefutably that the 
Jehovah of the Israelites was not the same God whom Jesus declared 
unto us.] Is not this written in the book of the just? So the sun 
stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down the 
space of one day. [This was believed when it was not known yet that 
it is the earth that revolves at the rate of over a thousand miles an 
hour, — and flies in its orbit at the rate of several thousand miles an 
hour, which, if checked in its course for the "space of one day," would 
have, in the first place, caused a heat of over 11,000 degrees Fahren- 
heit and caused the world to be dissolved by spontaneous combustion, 
and in the second place caused a complete stoppage of all the planets 
of the universe, some of which are many times larger than this earth 
— and not the sun that "hasted not to go down the space of one day," 
that did the moving over the earth.] There was not before, nor after 
so long a day, the Lord obeying the voice of a man, [ Who was the 
mouth-piece of a people who "revenged themselves of their enemies," 



286 

instead of doing what Jesus said: "Love your enemies."] and fight- 
ing for Israel." Josue 10:13-14. 

Well, I am glad to say that that is nothing but a superstitious 
fable, and has no more truth in it than there is in the story of the 
"demon through the possessed" telling a priest that he could not do 
anything with an "old Ritual which was used in the old country; the 
use of which, however, the Church does not sanction in the United 
States." 12:103. Is the devil different in the United States from 
the one in the "Old Country," that he cannot be exorcised with the 
same Ritual in the United States that the Church uses "in the Old 
Country?" 

It was in the reading of stories of that kind, and the knowledge 
that the Catholic Church "was the sole Guardian of the Scripture for 
fifteen hundred years," (31:105,) that destroyed in me the belief in 
the "plenary inspiration" and "infallibility" of the Bible, and that it 
is no longer to me a book of authority, just as the Catholic Church is 
no longer an authority for me to be relied upon when it comes to a 
question of doctrine or dogma. 

That the story of "the Lord obeying the voice of a man," and 
causing the "sun and the moon" to stand still is no longer firmly 
believed by all Catholics may be gleaned from the following: "Strictly 
considered, this, most probably, was not true; but so it appeared, to 
those present. Therefore, they could say 'the Sun and Moon stood 
still.'" 102:12. Yes, that is it, it "appeared" so to them, and there- 
fore we are now to believe errors and impossibilities as truths which 
"appeared" to be facts to the ancients who had not the knowledge of 
the universe such as we have now. 

I suppose they had nothing but hour-glasses by which they measured 
time in those days, clocks not having been invented yet, and they were 
so engrossed in fighting that they neglected to attend to the hour 
glasses, and being neglected they did not record the hours they would 
have done had they been attended to, and because they did not show 
the regular number of hours recorded, when the battle was over, the 
ancients then concluded that the sun must have stood still, because it 
"appeared" so to them by looking at their hour-glasses. 

The battle was also one of the kind that seemed like hours for 
length of time when it was probably only minutes, just like we often 
experience ourselves when trying moments seem like hours to us. 
And that was probably the case with the Israelites, and having no 



287 

clocks to record time, the time "appeared" so long to them that they 
thought the sun stood still while they were slaughtering their enemies, 
instead of doing as Jesus said we should, that is, "Love your ene- 
mies," who knows but my opinion, as just given, is not the solution 
of the fable, of the sun standing still, and "hasted not to go down the 
space of one day?" 

To say that that cannot be so because God inspired them, there- 
fore, they could not be mistaken in what "appeared" to them to be 
facts, such an assertion is completely undermined according to the 
following: "Some of their [Inspired writers] views concerning the 
Earth, the Sun, the Stars, etc., may have been not only very defective 
but even directly false." 102:11. Yes, and things that "appeared" to 
them as facts, although in reality they ^ere directly false," we are 
asked to believe under pain of eternal damnation, because they are 
recorded in a so-called "plenary inspired" and "infallible" Bible. 
What a medley! 

The Old Testament characters are, as a rule, nothing but vindict- 
ive, murderous, and cursing persons. Think of a man of God cursing 
"in the name of the Lord" (IV Kings 2:24) a lot of boys and had them 
torn to pieces by two bears simply because they said to him: "Go up, 
thou bald-head." Jesus could be sinned against and be forgiven, 
even praying, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," 
but a prophet must curse and avenge himself. 

Think of the "Spirit of the Lord" coming upon the "chaste" 
(Judges 16:1,) murderer so he would have strength enough to slay 
"thirty men, whose garments he took away, and gave to them that had 
declared the riddle," (Judges 14:19,) and also calling on the Lord to 
restore to him his former strength so that he could "revenge" (Judges 
16:28,) himself on his enemies! Think of God inspired men praying 
God to "let not their sin be blotted out from before Thy face." 2 
Esdros 4:5. Has God changed because Jesus said: "If you will not 
forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offenses," be- 
cause now we must forgive if we desire forgiveness ourselves, while in 
the "Old Will" His "chosen" people could pray not to forgive and 
could "revenge" themselves and yet could be forgiven? Is it not 
rather a God dishonoring blasphemy to act in the manner they did in 
the "Old Will," dispensation, and then allow their claims as being 
ruled and directed and command by the God who is? 

Is conception and birth different now than it was under the Old 



288 

Dispensation? Have the laws of nature in that regard been changed? 
If not, do you believe that a married woman now is twice as long 
"unclean" if she gives birth to a "maid-child" than she would be if 
she gave birth to a "man-child?" Lev. 12:2-5. Yet it says at the 
head of that chapter: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying." 

Is it not about time to purge the Bible of its God dishonoring 
and woman degrading passages, which are lies in the first place, and 
in the second place furnish texts galore for atheists and infidels to 
harp on and gloat over, and which is the cause of much contention, 
quibbling and quarreling even among believers? 

What is the Bible anyway? how was it gotten up? and how did 
we get it? Was it not all the result of the work of ordinary human 
beings such as we are ? Why should God inspire men of the past any 
more so than now, if He is unchangeable, impartial, and we are all 
alike His creatures? If the Bible is the work of infallible men, then 
why is it the Bibles were not all alike? 

The Standard Edition of the non-Catholic Bible contains only 
sixty-six books, while the Catholic Bible contains seventy -four. The 
eight books in the latter Bible not found in the former, are as follows: 
Tobias, Judith, I. Esdras, Barnch, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the 
two Machabees. And it is in II. Machabees 12:43:46 that the Catholic 
Church has her "warrant of Scripture" for charging money for Masses 
for the dead, and in praying for the dead, for it says: "And making a 
gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for 
sacrifice, to be offered for the sins of the dead, and because he consid- 
ered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness. [Godliness here 
means "fighting for the cause of God and religion," (Foot note II. 
Mach. 12:45,) just like "fighting" for the "Church of Rome" was an 
honor which might be compared with the "godliness" of the fighting 
Israelites. "When St. Jane Frances heard that her son had been 
killed in fighting against the English in the Isle of Rhe, she knelt 
down with clasped hands, and her eyes lifted up to heaven, and said, 
'Allow me, my Lord and My God! allow me to speak, to give vent to 
my grief; and what shall I say, O my God, unless it be to thank Thee 
for the honor Thou hast done me in taking my only son while he was 
fighting for the Church of Rome.'" 11:2H7.] It is therefore a holy 
and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed 
from the dead." II. Mach. 12:43-45-46. 

It does not say from "punishment" or from "purgatory, " does it? If 



289 

we analyze the texts on which this praying for loosing "from sins" is 
based, it will be found that mortal sins of the dead is meant. "And 
they found under the coats of the slain, some of the donaries of the 
idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the Jews: so that all 
plainly saw, that for this cause they were slain. * * * And so be- 
taking themselves to prayers, they besought Him, that the sin which 
had been committed might be forgotten." II Mach. 12:40-42. And 
it was far those sins of the slain that the "twelve thousand drachms 
of silver" were sent to "Jerusalem for sacrifice that they may be 
loosed from sins." Now, those sins that the slain Israelites had 
committed, and for which prayers were offered, were "an abomination 
to the Lord thy God, because it is an anathema. Deut. 7:25-26. If 
one can be "loosed from sins" of that kind, after being dead, by being 
jjrayed for, then why may one not be "loosed" from all sins when one 
is dead and is prayed for? The twelfth chapter of Machabees is a fatal 
one against the doctrine of an eternal hell, if, by praying for the dead,^ 
who committed "an abomination to the Lord thy God, because it is an 
anathema," one "may be loosod from such sins." Is it not? a. f. y. 

Why is it that the non-Catholic Bible is so different from the 
Catholic Bible, if the Bible is of Divine origin, and is the only infalli- 
ble rule of religious faith and practice? In one there is "warrant of 
Scripture" for praying for the dead, and in the other there is not, now 
which one is the "only infallible rule of religious faith and practice," 
of the two? Surely, both cannot be right? Of course, the Catholic 
will say that the Protestant Bible is a "corrupted Bible," (66:26,) 
therefore the Catholic Bible* is the genuine one. If you are a non- 
Catholic do you believe that? If you do, then why do you not become 
a member of the Catholic Church and use their .Bible, which is genu- 
ine, instead of remaining outside her pale and using a "corrupted 
Bible?" And if you do not believe that the claim of the Catholic 
Church is true and that your Bible is infallible, then why is it that 
you have not One Infallible Bible Church, instead of the Episcopalian, 
Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Christian, Mormon, Con- 
gregationalist, Universalist, Christian Catholic, [Dowieite,] etc., 
Churches, all of whom claim that their Churches rest on the founda- 
tion of an infallible Bible, of which Mr. Moody affirmed that "unless 
every word and every syllable, from Genesis to Revelation, is true, we 



290 

have no Bible, and we may as well gather together what we have been 
calling our Bibles and make a bonfire of them?" 128:3. 

If "every word and every syllable" in the Bible is true, then why 
is it that the Episcopalian reads the Bible and the Holy Spirit leads 
one to the EiDiscopal Church instead of to the Christian Church ? Or 
the Methodist to the Methodist Church instead of to the Episcopal 
Church, who also are guided by an infallible Bible? • Or the Baptist 
to the Baptist Church instead of to the Presbyterian Church, who 
also are guided by an infallible Bible? and so on? Or does not the 
Holy Spirit guide you? If not, then why do you pray that you may 
be correctly guided? And if the Holy Spirit guides you is it not a 
blasphemy to say that he guides you to the Christian Church, another 
to the Episcopal, another to the Lutheran, another to the Mormon 
Church, and that even out of the Baptist Church, for which he can 
"thank Grod;" (129:9,) or into the hundreds of different denominations 
into which the non-Catholic Church is divided. 

If you do not believe that the Pope is infallible, then by what 
rule of logic or process of reasoning can you believe that Moses, or 
Peter, or Paul, or John, were infallible? And if they were not infal- 
lible, then, how can your Bible be infallible, and if your Bible is not 
infallible then on what does your Church rest but on the human in- 
ventions of doctrines of each leader of each denomination? One 
would think that if the Bible is true in "every word and every sylla- 
ble," and therefore infallible, that there would be One Infallible Bible 
Church, as there is One Infallible Papal Church, but where is there 
such a Church. Have you ever heard of the "One Infallible Bible 
Church?" 

It is amusing to see a Baptist with a' Bible under the arm pass by 
the doors of a Congregational, a Methodist and a Presbyterian Church 
and trudge through mud and slush for blocks to go to a Baptist 
Church; or an Episcopalian with a Bible under the arm pass by the 
doors of a Christian, a Baptist and a Methodist Church and go blocks 
past them to an Episcopal Church; or a Christian with a Bible under 
the arm pass the doors of an Episcopal, a Methodist and a Baptist 
Church and go blocks past them to a Christian Church. Even mem- 
bers of the same family going to different churches, all having an in- 
fallible guide under their arms. 

That would be like a family traveling from one city to another, 
each one traveling over a different railway. It is so much more pleasant 



291 

traveling that way than if they all traveled together. If a pick- 
pocket stole your purse it would be so much nicer to have a stranger 
take interest in you then, and see that your wants were supplied for 
the remainder of the journey, than it would be for a member of your 
own family to do so. It would be so much nicer to have strangers to 
make inquiries for you, and to see that you do not get run over at a 
crossing at your destination, than it would be if members of your own 
family did that The more that you would be scattered the better 
protection you would have for you know in "dis-union there is 
strength." That is the reason you are permitted to have Bibles in 
your public schools, you being dis-united gives you such an over- 
whelming majority against the "saloon politicians, infidels, agnostics, 
sceptics and Jesuits" who "have been running over schools auite 
long enough," (88:882, Oct. 23, 1901.) and why a country that is "but 
23 per cent' ' Catholic, defeated at an election, the resolve to intro- 
duce the Protestant religion "into the curriculum of the public 
schools."' 54:10, Nov. 1902. 

It is because you are so divided that the Bible cannot be taught 
in the public schools, even though there were no "Jesuits" to oppose 
you, for one of your non-Catholic fellowmen says that to teach it in 
the public schools "there is almost sure to arise this objection, that 
denominational questions come up and cause strife." (130:7, Jan. 4, 
1902.) No need of "Jesuits" to interfere then is there, if to teach the 
Bible in the public schools "there is almost sure to arise this objec- 
tion, that denominational questions come up and cause strife." (130:7, 
Jan. 4, 1902.) 

Nor is it alone with the public school question that non-Catholics 
are concerned, but also among their own churches that there is dispo- 
sition to get members out of each other's churches into their own, 
instead of getting the "members for their churches out of the non- 
believing world. "Some ministers spend all their time in fishing in 
other people's jjonds, and they throw the line into that church-pond 
and jerk out a Methodist, and throw the line into another church-pond 
and bring out a Presbyterian, or there is a religious row in some 
neighboring church, and a whole school of fish swim off from that 
pond, and we take them all in [Like the "One Infallible Bible Church" 
will when it is launched] with one sweep of the net. What is gained? 
Absolutely nothing for the cause of Christ. What strengthens an 
army is new recruits. * * * Yfe should build our Churches, 



292 

[Why Churches, if the same "infallible" Bible is used by them?] * * * 
out of the world, lest we build on another man's foundation." 88:804, 
Oct. 3, 1900. 

I do not suppose that a shipload of marked Christian Heralds con- 
taining the above quotation, was sent to our "New Possessions" and 
distributed gratuitously among the natives, otherwise they could not 
be "bumboozled" with the following: "An event that may be historic 
and of transcendent importance in its development and influence, 
rather than because of its- intrinsic value, is the formation of the 
Evangelical Union of the Philippine Islands, which organization was 
formed April 26, 1901. * * * Not the least valuable and impor- 
tant agreement was that the name 'Iglesia Evangelica' shall be used 
for the Filipino Churches which shall be raised up, and, when neces- 
sary, the denominational name shall be added in parenthesis, e. g., 
'Iglesia Evangelica de Malibay (Mission Methodista Ep.).' This will 
give the native people the idea of Protestant Church unity, [That is, 
"bumboozle" them into believing that it is the "One Inflallible Bible 
Church" out of which they are not to "jerk out a Methodist"] a unity 
to which they have been accustomed in their relations with the Roman 
Catholic Church, hitherto the only Church organization they have 
known. After several prolonged sessions, the committee charged with 
that duty was enabled to report an agreement upon division of terri- 
tory." 23:818, June 27, 1901. [So they would not "build on another 
man's foundation." The "Roman Catholic Church, hitherto the only 
church organization they have known-' being only a "popish hum- 
buo'o-ery," (94:21,) presumably, and is therefore not "another man's 
foundation," and they are at liberty, therefore, to jerk out any of them 
that they can.] 

Why do they not try that scheme in the United States where 
there are about iifty million people who are in no "church-pond" of 
any kind? Is it because they can not, with their "wisdom and learn- 
ing" dating back to the sixteenth century, "bumfoozle" the native 
people" here in the United States? It seems to me that a town that 
"will not let a 'nigger' [Negro] stay in it over night" (Daily paper] 
would be as good a field for an "Evangelical union" to operate in as 
are the "Philippine islands." And the town referred to is not such a 
very great way from the geographical center of the United States, 

either. 

What is the cause for such a state of affairs? It is because your 



293 

"inflallible"' Bible is such an unreliable authority, that it can be 
twisted and stretched to suit anj' doctrine one wants to invent, who 
does not properly exercise the '"arms of the intellect," faculties given 
us by God to use and not to throw under the feet of blind, umreasona- 
ble, incomprehensible and self -contradictory faith. 

Why should we, then, hesitate to purge ' and revise an authority 
that is only humanly made, and was made at a time when men had not 
as yet made the discovery that many things that "appeared"' to them 
to be facts were after all only appearances and had no shade of real 
truth in them? It does not seem to me that in a so-called enlightened 
and civilized age, as this is supposed to be, we would do away with the 
dross and chaff, in the Bible, that is a constant stumbling block to 
many, and reconstruct the Bible in such a way that the most ignorant, 
could not misunderstand what is required of one. 

If God spoke to us through inspired men, one would think that 
One who is Wisdom itself could have imparted His Will in such sim- 
ple and unmistakable language so that there could not have been any 
I^ossibility whatever of misunderstanding Him. 

If it is said that "a bad heart is the great objection against this 
Holy Book" (130:15, Dec. 14, 1901,) or against the Catholic Church, 
then I will let you a. f. y. whether that charge can be applied to me or 
not, as I have attacked both in such a manner that if the charge can 
be applied to anyone it appears that it could certainly be applied to 
me. Have I attacked both because they would place a restriction on 
my unbridled desire to go on drunks, now that I must exercise the 
utmost care not to lose my bodily balance, lest I fall flat like a log, 
because I have no movement in my hips so that I could make a quick 
step to balance myself should I lose my balance on account of a stag- 
gering drunk? 

Have I attacked both because they would place a i^rohibition on 
my unbridled desire to indulge in the "highly indecent, obscene, im- 
pure" round dance, now that I cannot even walk without crutches? 
Have I attacked both because they would place a restriction to my 
unbridled desire to sit at a gaming table and gamble, now that I can- 
not sit in a chair? Have I attacked both because they would forbid 
me to give short weights and measures, now that I am not in busi- 
ness? Can it be said of me that it is because of a bad heart that I 
have attacked them? If not, is it not, as already stated, because I 



294 

have had the scales taken from my eyes, and that I now believe because 
I understand and not simply by an act of faith, as formerly? 

It is because I made the discovery that "regeneration," "putting 
on Christ," and penance are acts performed through the operation of 
the mind by an act of the will, and are not ablutions, feelings, and 
punishings of the body.. It is because I have discovered that the 
highest service we can render God is by loving our neighbors as our- 
selves, and not in performing rites and taking part in ceremonies, 
which I have already proved, \fith the "arms of the intellect," are 
only species of error, idolatry, superstition, and blasphemy. And if 
that is the reasonable view of the whole matter, can we not then re- 
construct the Bible on such lines that it will make that apparent to 
the average person? 

If nine-tenths of the contents of the Book of the so-called Word 
of God were purged from it we would still have sufficient left of it to 
make it an "infallible rule of religious faith and practice." and we 
would then be rid of the God-dishonoring blasphemies and the woman- 
degrading blunders in it which have been the favorite points of at- 
tack of atheists and unbelievers. 

The Bible was originally only a humanly constructed work, 
made suitable for the time in which it was made, but which does not 
fit this enlightened and progressive age. What would you to-day 
think of a man who should say that the stage coach that was "good 
enough for father is good enough for me," and would, therefore, refuse 
to ride in a railway coach? Or whose father, who used tallow dip lights, 
refused to use gas or incandescent light? Or whose father, who used 
mule cars, refused to ride in trolley cars, etc., because what was "good 
enough for father is good enough for me?" Yet I once heard a non- 
Catholic revivalist say that the "religion that was good enough for 
father is good enough for me," when speaking on the fundamentals of 
orthodox Christianity, which he said the present age demanded that 
they be modified so as to be more in accord with the views of modem 
thought. 

Is there anything wrong in demanding that things once held as 
truths be modified so as to be more in accord with modem views? 
Does modem view say that a married woman, who gives birth to a 
"maid-child," is twice as long "unclean" as she would be if she gave 
birth to a "man-child?" If that is not a truth now, was it ever a 
truth, if God is unchangeable and the laws of conception and birth 



295 

are the same now that they were when it was supposed the "Lord 
spoke to Moses" in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus, saying she is 
twice as long "unclean" if a married woman gives birth to a "maid- 
child" instead of to a "man-child?" Why should we then hesitate to 
cut out that chapter? Must we let that woman-degrading lie remain 
in the Bible forever simply because what "was good enough for father 
is good enough for me?" 

Truth is unchangeable, I will admit, but the question is. Are those 
all truths which have been believed in the past as truths? Just see 
for how many thousands of years everybody believed that the earth 
was the center of the universe, until Gralileo made the discovery that 
such a belief was wrong, and completely upset what "was good enough 
for father is good enough for me" to believe. And if you have read 
history you know how Galileo was persecuted for jDromulgating such 
"heretical" views. 

If St. Paul had said, "What was good enough for father is good 
enough for me," do you suppose he would have made, in the face of 
the belief and teaching of the Jewish priesthood, that "heretical" state- 
ment that "circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing: 
but the observation of the commandments of God? I. Cor. 7:19. Do 
you suppose I would have made the "heretical" statement, in the face 
of the Pope's teaching that "Christ is not put on except by the fre- 
quentation of the Eucharistic table" — that it is through the operation 
of the mind by an act of the will that Christ is put on, had I not made 
the discovery that the mind is the assimilating organ of the soul, 
instead of the stomach being it — into which the Eucharist is washed 
with a table spoon full of water, when one receives communion lyiog 
in bed. 

Do you suppose that I would call praying to the Blessed Virgin 
a species of idolatry had I not discovered the fact that it is impossible 
for any being, excepting God Almighty, to hear at one and the same 
time — simultaneously — over 46,000 petitions? Well, then, do you 
suppose I would make the attack on the Bible, as not containing only 
the Word of God, had I not made the discovery that an infallible au- 
thority would not lead into hundreds of different beliefs, such as the 
non-Cathclic Christian world is divided into today? 

Why is your authority composed of only sixty-six books and 
that of the Catholic of seventy-four? Either one or the other must 
be man-made, a "corrupted" one. Now, which one is it? Did you 



296 

gather copies of the manuscripts of all the books purporting to be 
divinely inspired and place them "iDromiscuously" under the com- 
munion table in a church and beseach the "Lord that the inspired 
-writings might get upon the table while the spurious ones remained 
underneath, and that it happened accordingly" (131:13), as it is said 
■was done at the Council of Nice? (181:13.) And that the same God 
who performed both miracles made seventy-four books get on the 
Catholic communion table, and only sixty-six on the non-Catholic 
communion table, for which there is just as much grounds for belief 
in those miraculous performances as there is in Grod leading one into 
the Methodist Church, another into the Presbyterian, another into the 
Mormon, and another into Dowie's Church, etc.? 

Dr. Dowie can prove from "Scrii^ture that all forms of sickness 
and infirmity are the Devil's work" (132:26), and I can prove, with the 
"arms of the intellect," that that is a blasphemous lie, and it would 
impeach God's power, goodness, and providence if the Doctor's state- 
ment was true. The Doctor also says that the Old Testament "does 
not bind the Church of Christ" (122:8), yet to bolster up a fanaticism 
of his against the use of swine's flesh, he says: "There is a portion of 
the Mosaic law, as we call it, that is of such manifest common sense, 
aud betokens so careful a knowledge of what is now the fashion to call 
hygiene, that it is evidently of Divine origin" (123:21), that he is 
willing to be bound with it if he can only wreak vengence on the pork 
packers with it for probably not sending him a pail or two of "Excel- 
sior Farm Sausage" when he arrived at Chicago, according to Luke 
9:3, to work in the Lord's vineyard. 

He also says that "Moses gave them [Israelites] a great many 
other laws that God almighty never gave them." (23:21.) If that is 
true, then, how is one to know which are Divine laws and which 
are only man-made, when both are contained in the same so-called 
"infallible authority?" 

Another writer asks. "Why should there be so much difference 
between Christ's teachings (Matt. 5:44) and David's prayers for the 
destruction of his enemies. (Ps. 83:17 and 104:35. — Catholic Bible 
Ps. 82:18 and 103:35) * * * ? It was under a different dispen- 
sation. [What difference does that make? Was God different then 
than now?] Christ came to introduce a better order of things in 
which vindictive feelings have no place. David regarded his enemies 
as the enemies of God, as indeed they were. [The publicans and 



297 

harlots were certainly "indeed, the enemies of God," and did Jesus 
pray, "Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let tiie wicked 
be no more," and have them in mind? Did He not say of them: 
"Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into 
the kingdom of God before you" (Matt. 21:31), the Scribes and Phar- 
ises, the orthodox decendants of David.] * * * There were many 
things said and done under the Mosiac economy that would be wrong 
in the light Christ brought." 38:1022, Dec. 4, 1901. 

Yet we are told that God spoke to Moses, and that He is the 
same "yesterday, today and forever.". What a paradox! God sjDoke 
to Moses, is the same "yesterday, today and forever," and yet "there 
were many things said and done under the Mosaic economy that would 
be wrong in the light Christ brought," A strong i)oint indeed for 
the unbelieving Evolutionists to attach to, to prove the claim that 
man is a developed animal, in whose early dawn of reason "there were 
many things said and done that would be wrong in the light Christ 
brought." 

Will you call the following inspired? "David says he never saw 
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging." How was it with the 
beggar who was laid at the rich man's gate and who died, and was car- 
ried by angels to Abraham's bosom? [Which must be about as large 
as the Blessed Virgin's arms to which Catholics, at the rate of over 
46,000 each second of time, should fly in time of temi:)tation when she 
"shall enfold us safely until all danger is past." 93: May 14, 1902. J 
The two cases have no bearing upon each other. David was speak- 
ing, not for the whole human race, but of matters strictly within his 
own experience, [The sores of Lazarus, then, were jjrobably "love 
tokens" from the Lord to let him know how the Lord loved him', and 
his poverty a chance for him to say '"Deo gratiais^''' one of which "in 
adversity is worth six thousand in prosperity" (11:254), matters not 
"strictly witliin his (David's) own experience"] when he said that in 
his own day and generation he had never seen the righteous forsaken, 
nor his children brought to beggary." 38:822, Oct. 10, 1900. No 
wonder, for the "righteous" were the warring Israelites who despoiled 
others of their possessions. Why should their children be "brought 
to beggary" when they were that kind of "righteous" people? 

It seems David's traveling must have been very limited for lack 
of time which was, probably, taken up in settling the quarrels be- 
tween his queenly wives and his "wives" of "inferior condition, 



298 

servile extraction, inferior degree," and in watching "from the roof df 
his house" other men's wives bathing themselves "in the garden," 
that his experience was confined within a territory in which none 
were forsaken or their "children brought to beggary." 

But is it safe to limit "inspiration" to "matters strictly within" 
one's "own experience?" If so, then the "experience" of the young 
husband, who has earnestly prayed to God to spare the life of the 
mother of his infant child, could say, after the death of his wife, that 
God does not hear prayers, for he "was speaking, not for the whole 
human race, but of matters strictly within his own experience," which 
"experience" was that God did not hear his prayers. Is that not so? 
How, then, can the Bible be a divinely "plenary inspired" book if 
some of its contents are merely "matters strictly within" the "experi- 
ence" of the so-called inspired writers. 

Supposing we cut out the "experiences" of writers of ages ago 
and substitute in their places the "experiences" of our own? No 
doubt one who has seen the moderate drinker, who confined his drinks 
for a time to social glasses, but who finally became a drunken sot, 
could say, with as much claim to "inspiration" as David, that "he 
who drinks but the social glass treads on dangerous ground," for that 
is a matter "strictly within his own experience" — observation. Is that 
not so? Then why should we be afraid to purge and revise the Bible, 
if in our own day we can give expressions to truths which are, in one 
sense of the word, just as much "inspired" as those of David who 
spoke of "matters strictly within his own experience?" 

Let us not only purge the Bible of the dross and chaflp that is in 
it, but let us also revise it, and give the texts their proper meaning in 
words that mean just what they say. 

The following is a good sample that ought to be taken for an 
illustration for using words according to what they are understood to 
mean. "Why do we say in the Lord's prayer, 'Lead us not into temp- 
tation?' Why should we suppose God would do this? It is a prayer 
for support and deliverance when we are tempted. Another transla- 
tion reads, 'Bring us not into temptation.' Dean Alford gives still 
another translation, 'Leave (or abandon) us not in temptation' — which 
probably conveys the meaning intended more clearly than the terms 
used by earlier translators" (38:1015, Nov. 27, 1901). Now, here is a 
plain case of wrong translation, because in the Lord's prayer it says, 
"Lead us not into temptation," which is certainly a gratuitous petition 



299 

if the following is true: "Let no man, when he is tempted, say that 
he is tempted by God: for God is not a tempter of evils, and He 
tempteth no man" (Jas. 1:13). By not leading him into temptation, 
therefore, the translation, "which probably conveys the meaning 
intended,," should be "Leave us not in temptation." 

Now, I do not see why we should not revise the Bible and make 
it read "Leave us not in temptation," if that is the real meaning of 
the petition, which is quite different from "lead us not into tempta- 
tion." To lead a person into a ditch is quite a different proposition 
from that of leaving a person in a ditch when we see one in a ditch, 
is that not so? Well, then, let us use the words, in revising the Bible, 
which convey in a clear manner the meaning intended. 

The same with Luke 1-4:26. If that passage means the same 
thing as Matt. 10:37, which no doubt it does, then say so, and do not 
give unbelievers a pretext for harping on so-called "contradictions" in 
the Bible, for certainly that is a contradiction, if we give to words the 
meaning commonly attributed to them, to say in one place, "Love 
your enemies" (Matt. 5:44), and in another, "If any man come to me, 
and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
brethren, and sisters, yea: and his own life also, he cannot be my 
disciple." Luke ]4:26. But some will say this latter passage is not 
to be understood literall; it does not mean that his disciples are 
actually to hate their nearest kindred. But, I answer, if it does not 
mean so, why does it say so? And again, if this passage is not to be 
taken literally, by what rule is the first one, in Matthew 5:44, to be 
proved literal? 34:78. 

Is not that writer about right in saying: "If it don't mean so, 
why does it say so?" And that is ^vhat I say. 

One time I heard a Protestant minister discourse on Luke 13:26, 
and the greater part of the sermon was an effort towards explaining 
that Jesus did not literally mean one should hate one's kindred, but 
that he meant that one should not have so an inordiate a love for 
kindred, or anything else, so as to shut out the love of Christ. Well, 
then, if that is what Luke 14:26 means, and I do not question that it 
does, why not say so then in the Bible? 

Of course, I believe that if the Bible were written in plain, sim- 
ple, comprehensible language — in which it really ought to be written, 
if it contained only the Word of God, and was dictated by Him — that 
most of the occupation of priests and ministers would be gone, and it 



300 

would, ^therefore, not be of the best interest to them to have it re- 
vised. But are we never to do any thinking for ourselves, because 
thereby some might be without occupation? 

Supposing Luther had never thought for himself, would you then 
want to go back to the time just before the Reformation? To judge 
from reading non-Catholic literature you would not want to, I know. 
Well, then, why cannot we do a little thinking and say, Let us use 
common sense and revise the Bible, using plain, simjole and compre- 
hensible language, about which there could be no question as to what 
it did or did not mean? 

When God speaks to us through the emotions, instincts and ap- 
petites, as to what His will and design is in the physical realm, there 
is no mystery and uncertainty as to what He means, is there? Then 
why should there be so much mystery and ambiguity about it as to 
what God means when He speaks to us in the moral realm? And not 
alone in the moral realm but also in the spiritual? 

Is the following to be taken literally? "For the pillars of the 
earth are Jehovah's and he hath set the world upon them" (I. Sam. 2:8). 
If not, what is its meaning but the belief of the ancients who had not 
as yet made the discovery that the world hung in sjjace with no visible 
material support? And because they erred, and incorporated their 
errors in the so-called "plenary insi^ired" Book, are we for all time to 
have such reverential awe for the Book that we dare not tamper with 
it and purge from it those errors, which, being mingled with the truths 
that are in the Bible, casts a shadow of uncertainty over them? 

A writer calls attention to some of the contradictions in the Bible, 
which might not be contradictions had not a defender of the literal in- 
terpretation of the Bible presented "warrant of Scriioture" to support 
his contention. "We learn from Eph. 4:6, that God is omnipresent. 
'One God and Father of them all,' [Surely if He is 'in you all' He 
ought to be omnipresent.] And, again, in Jer. 23:21, 'Do not I fill 
heaven and earth?' I turn over to Gen. 11:5 and read, 'The Lord came 
down to see the city and the tower, which children of man builded.' 
He was not there, then, till he went down" (133:9). Now, that is a 
contradiction that might be exi)lained "figuratively" that it is not a 
contradiction, by an orthodox divine, but just here a "Latter Day 
Saint of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ" presented "warrant 
of Scripture" that God is not omnipresent, which would demolish any 
attempt to explain away the contradiction by saying it is "figurative." 



301 

"A certain minister made the declaration some time ago, tj^at he would 
just as leave bow down to, and pray to the stove, and expect an answer, 
as to pray to Grod and expect an answer: and I say it is no wonder; for 
if I should write a letter to the president of the United States it is not 
likely that I would get an aaswer from the ruler of England; and if I 
loray to a god that is everywhere, and has no ears, nor eyes, nor parts, 
how unreasonable it would be for me to ever expect an answer to my 
prayers. First we will see who and what Grod is. One question is 
answered in John 4:24. There it says, God is a spirit. But the ob- 
jector says: 'Because Grod is a spirit, he has no parts nor form.' I 
expect to prove * * * that a spirit has parts and form, and that 
God is a person. Sometimes that makes people stare, but that does 
not make much difference to me if the Bible is on our side. [Notice, 
he has the Bible on his side.] The first quotation following this is 
found in Genesis 11:5-7: 'And the Lord came dovm to see the city 

and the tower which the children of men builded. And the Lord said 

> 

Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this 
they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, 
which they have imagined to do. Go to, let is go down, and there 
confound their language, that they may not understand one another's 
speech.' Now, if it be true that God is everywhere, pray tell me why 
did He have to come down to see the city? [Could an Atheist have 
asked a more stunning question than this "Latter Day Saint" asked 
here? Yet he says, "the Bible is on our side."] He would be there 
already. You will notice the expression in this quotation also, that 
God talks as though He was somewhere above, and was going to come 
down to confound the language of those people who were building the 
tower of Babel. [Which, no doubt, is a "fable."] Now if God is 
everywhere at the same time, this language is erroneous and mislead- 
ing. [Which it certainly is if Eph. 4:6, and Jer. 23:24, are true.] I 
wall turn to Genesis 18:21: 'I will go down now and see whether they 
have done altogether to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if 
not I will know.' The same language used in the other quotation. 
He is going to go down and examine and know whether these things 
be true. Now, if God was already down here, He would have no need 
to come. [That's s-o-a]. If God was down here, He would have no 
need to send angels to ascertain whether these things are so. Again, 
in Matthew sixth chapter and ninth verse, the Lord Jesus there 
instructs the people — his disciples, perhaps, — to pray; and what 



302 

language did He use in that prayer? Do you suppose the Lord Jesus 
knew where His Father was? If He did not who would know? And 
what did He say? 'Pray ye: Our Father who is everywhere?' Is that 
what He said? You all know that prayer which is called the Lord's 
prayer. It is taught in every Sunday School. Jesus didn't say, 'Our 
Father who is everywhere,' but 'Our Father which art in heaven.' 
and not everywhere, so that there may be a possibility that the Father 
is a person and can no more be everywhere at the same time, that 
you or I. [Do you hear that? But it must be true, for it is the sec- 
ond last direct revelation God has made, that is, to His servant Joseph 
Smith, the last being to Mrs. Eddy, and for which He ''impelled" 
her to charge "three hnndred dollars as the price for each pupil."] 
134:61. I think that is enough, for the last text, which is from Jesus, 
[From who is Eph. 4:6 or Jer. 23:24?] locates God in heaven, and 
everywhere at the same time." 77:2-5: 

Now, does not that argument — with the "Bible on his side" — 
prove that God is not omnipresent nor omniscient? But now I can 
contradict him and refute his argument likewise from the Bible. 
"Neither is there any creature invisible in his sight: but all things 
are naked and open to Him." Hebrew 4:13. Does that not prove 
His omniscience, and that He does not need to "go down and examine 
and know whether these things be true," or that He needs to "send 
angels to ascertain whether these things are so?" 

Not quoting Eph. 4:6; Jer. 23:24; Acts 17:28, but only the fol- 
lowing, I will prove, with the Bible, that God is omnipresent, "every- 
where at the same time," notwithstanding the fact that a '"Latter Day 
Saint" proved, with "the Bible on his side," that God "can no more 
be everywhere at the same time, than you or I:" "For of him, and by 
him, and in him, are all things." Eom. 11:36. If "all things" are in 
Him, just as I already illustrated with the fish-globe filled with water, 
representing Spirit — God — as filling all space, just as the water in 
fish-globe filled all space in it, therefore all the fish — representing "all 
things" — are in the water, lust as "all things" are in God, does that 
not make Him omnipresent, just as much so as the water is omni- 
present to the fish in the fish-globe. 

If, then, it can be proved by the Bible, as the "Latter Day Saint" 
did, that God is not omniscient and omnipresent, because He said: 
"I will go down now, [Which would be needless, yea, in fact, impos- 
sible were He omnipresent — that is, everywhere] and see whether 



303 

they have done altogether to the cry of it, which is come unto me; 
and if not [This language certainly implies that He does not know, 
therefore. He cannot be omniscient, and that "all things" are not 
"naked and open to Him." I will know" (Gen. 18:21), [Showing He 
does not know, therefore. He "will go down now, and see." and also 
be proved by the same Bible, as I have done, that God is omniscient, 
"all things are naked and open to Him," and that he is omnipresent is 
then not the contention, that the Bible contradicts itself, a true one. 

What, then, because of a so-called "plenary inspired" Book, con- 
taining nothing but the Word of God if it contradicts itself. Can such 
a Book be an "infallible Bible," and the "only infallibility that I re- 
quire, "as a Protestant Bishop is reported to have said, "in the course of a 
sermon against Papal Infallibility" (31:lfiO)? What is an authority 
worth that thus contradicts itself? Look about you and see the 
numerous sects or denominations that there are, all basing their beliefs 
on that authority, and you have your answer to the question, "What 
is an authority worth that thus contradicts itself?" 

The "Latter Day Saint" says, that "that the moment they dejjarted 
from its [the Bible] literal meaning, one man's opinion or interpreta- 
tion was just as good as anothers, all were clothed with equal authority, 
and from thence across all the darkness and misunderstanding * * * 
which have agitated the world for the last seventeen hundred years" 
(125:10). [I supposed it was only since the time of the Reformation, 
but it seems there must have been "liberty of thought" jjrior to that 
time]. But how will the "Latter Day Saint" reconcile the following, 
which would be contradictions, if not "departed from its literal mean- 
ing?" "And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have 
seen God face to face, and my life is preserved" (Gen. 32:30); "And the 
Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend" 
(Exodus 33:11). "Notice now, the Lord spake unto Moses face to face. 
Then Moses and Jacob agree that the Lord has a face * * * saw 
his face" (77:7, 8). He also quotes Exodus 24:9, 11, which "declares 
that Moses and his counselors and seventy men — seventy -four indi- 
viduals — here, see the God of Israel who has feet. Dare we dispute 
their testimony and say that our fathers were right and all these wit- 
nesses are wrong, and that God has no parts" (77:7, 8). 

"No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18). [Either John, 
or Moses and Jacob, were in error. Which will you have?] "Who 
only hath immortality, and inhabiteth light inaccessible, whom no 



304 

man hath seen, nor can see" (I. Tim. 6:16). Who is mistaken here? 
St. Paul or Moses ''and his counselors?" Or were none of them de- 
ceived, but simply mistaken? And if mistaken, did God, then "in- 
spire" them, He has deceived some one, and if He did not "insjjire" 
them, then what becomes of the claim that the Bible is a "plenary in- 
spired" Book? Will some theologian, to whom an "infallible Bible, is 
the only infallibility that I require," or one who interprets the Bible 
literally, please answer the above question, if the Bible is not to be 
"departed from its literal meaning?" "Dare we dispute their [Sts. 
John and Paul] testimony" and say that Moses and his counselors 
were right and "all these" [John and Paul] were wrong when they 
said "no man hath seen God at any time?" If no one answers, then, 
it must be admitted that my arguments, that the Bible is a book which 
contains contradictions, is therefore not "plenary inspired," or true in 
"every word and every syllable, from Genesis to Revelations," are irre- 
futable. Is that not so? 

Is it any wonder the Jews did not see in Jesus the promised 
Messiah, for whose coming they are still looking (75:103), when they 
took the meaning of the words in Scripture to be that which is com- 
monly literally attributed to them? What is there in this prophecy, 
when taken literally, and that is what the "Latter Day Saint" does 
with the Bible — the parts that are "warrant of Scripture" for Ms be- 
liefs, anyway — that points to such a person as their promised Messiah 
was supposed to be? "And this man shall be our peace, [But instead 
it has turned out otherwise for the Jews] when the Assyrian [Which 
the Catholic Church interprets to be the "prosecutors of the Church." 
Why did it not say so then?] shall come into our land, [Like the 
"Iglesia Evangelica" is the "Assyrian" in the Philippine Islands,] and 
when he shall set his- foot in our houses: and we shall raise against 
him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. And they shall feed 
the land of Assyria with the sword, [Which the Church says means 
the "sword of the spirit, which is the word of God" that they are 
feeding the "Assyrians," and which is bringing such "peace," as we 
behold today, in the "One Infallible Bible Church."] and the land of 
Nemrod [What Nemrod "signifies" we do not know, unless it is the 
town in which they "do not let a 'nigger' stay in over night] with the 
spears thereof: and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian, when he 
shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our borders." 
Mich. 5:5-6. 

That some of the Apostles even took literally the prophesies 



305 

concerning Jesus may be inferred from tliis : "But we hoped that it was 
he that snould have redeemed Israel." Luke 24:21. And here we 
have been execrating the Jews for taking the Scriptures literally, as 
the "Latter Day Saints" do, and crucifying Jesus according to their 
law in Lev. 24:16. 

Is it not about time, then, that we let up on our execrations of 
the Jews and extend to them the forgiving hand and take them into 
our fellowship, if they desire to do so? And more especially should 
we do so, if the following is true : "In the Old Law% the High Priest 
appointed by Almighty God, filled an office analogous to that of Pope 
in the New Law. [Who encourages the devotion to the Kosary, 
making it a matter of only about 46,000 prayers for the Blessed Vir- 
gin to hear at one and the same time, every second of time.] In the 
Jewish Church, there were priests and levites ordained to minister at 
the altar; and there was, also, a supreme ecclesiastical tribunal, with 
the High Priest at its head. All matters of religious controversy were 
referred to this tribunal; and in the last resort, to the High Priest, 
whose decision was enforced under pain of death" (31:118). [As, for 
instance, in the case of Jesus, according to Deut. 17:8-12, which the 
writer quotes]. 

In a foot note to Deut. 17:8 the Church says: "Here we see what 
authority Grod was pleased to give to the church guides of the Old 
Testament in deciding, without appeal, all controversies relating to 
the law, promising that they should not err therein: [How, then, was 
it that the High Priest was not preserved from erring in the matter of 
interpreting prophecy concerning Jesus, so that he would have dis- 
cerned that He was the promised Messiah?] and surely he has not 
done less for the church guides of the New Testament." [Well it 
looks like it, when "church guides of the New Testament" say that 
"Christ is not put on except by the frequentation of the Eucharistic 
table;" or who write "Encyclicals on the Rosary encouraging devotion 
to the Blessed Virgin, who, to hear all the prayers addressed to Her, 
would have to hear over 46,000 every second of time, which, of course, 
is an impossibility for any being, except God almighty.] 

If, then, "church -guides" of the New Testament can err, why 
should not the "church-guides" of the Old Testament have erred? 
And if they erred, and carried out the provisions of their law for 
crucifying Jesus as a blasphemer, why should they be held in execra- 
tion for doing that any more so than Calvin should be held in execration 



306 

for baptizing, with the "Holy Ghost and with fire," Servetus; or 
the Catholic Church be held in execration for not interfering when 
the "civil arm" led John Huss to the stake? 

That the Catholic Church would hardly go in spasms over it, if the 
Bible were destroyed as being the "only infallible rule of religious 
faith and practice" may be inferred from the following: "The ques- 
tion is not whether the Sacred Scriptures contain God's Word. The 
question is not whether souls can learn divine truths and draw light, 
strength and consolation from Holy Writ. What true Christian could 
doubt of it? The question is, whether man can learn from Holy Writ 
easily and safely all the Truth that he needs to know to save his soul. 
|[I say he can, even though nine-tenths of its contents were purged 
from it.] The question is, whether the Written Word of God is pri- 
marily and exclusively the means God chose to reveal and transmit 
His saving Truth to the generations of men destined to inhabit our 
terrestial globe. To answer the question we might reason from the 
cause to the effect, and conclude that God, In His wisdom and conde- 
scending love for man, [Which He so plainly manifested by having 
the devil chained down in the "bottomless pit" so he could not get to 
Adam and Eve to seduce them, and not making it necessary for Him 
in His "condescending love" to "curse the earth" (Gen. 3:17), nor 
require the "ignominious" death on the Cross of His "beloved" Son, 
in order to give us the eternal life which we might have had had Adam 
been permitted to "put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of 
life, and eat, and live forever. Gen. 4:22-24. What "condescending 
love" this God of the Israelites and Catholics has, who I am glad to 
say is not the God who is!] could not have chosen the Written Word 
as the primary and exclusive means to easily and infallibly transmit 
His life-giving Truth to all men to the end of time. But it is simpler 
and more easily to follow historj', to start from facts, and to ascertain 
what part God has, as a matter of fact, assigned to His Written Word. 
Now the fact is that, for generations and generations, for ages and 
ages, there was no Written Word of God. * * * In later ages, it 
is true, Moses, the most ancient and most venerable of all historians, 
received explicit order from God to commit the Law to writitig. But 
the Written Law to God's chosen people [Just like the Catholics and 
Christian Scientists are "chosen people of God (12:267 and 124:152)], 
to better regulate its civil and religious life, did not contain all the 
Truth which God had designed at divers times to address to the founers 



307 

and leaders of His people, and which, religiously joreserved and 
handed down to their descendants by word of mouth, constituted the 
Sacred Tradition of the people of Israel. The Written Word, there- 
fore conld not replace the Spoken Word, the Oral Tradition. It 
presui^posed Tradition. It needed to be explaned and completed by 
Tradition." 135:232, Oct. 1902. [Of which there is too much already 
as it is.] 

It may be seen, then, that the Church would just as soon rely on 
"Tradition" as on the written word of Grod," on which to base some 
of her teachings, as for instance, the Rosary, and the "Hail! Holy Oil, 
Hail! Holy Chrism!" and her "warrant of Scriptiire" in James 5:14, 
for feeling one's pulse and saying: 'T will not give John Extreme 
Unction now for I don't think he is going to die, yet." 

I will give another quotation to show the Church's attitude toward 
the Bible: "Grod who wishes that all men should come to the knowl- 
edge of truth and be saved, has appointed, in matters belonginp- to 
faith and morals, another foundation besides the Scriptures on which 
all who aim after true knowledge, can securely build. What is this 
foundation? It is the infallible ministry of the Catholic Church, con- 
sisting of the pope," etc, 6:341. "The Bible, so far from being such 
a book ("set forth by the founder of the'religion as its authoritive ex- 
position") is simply, as far as the New Testament, its important part 
for us, is concerned, a collection of Christian writings, on its face not 
essentially more conclusive than the works of other early Christian 
writers would be, especially if we consider the Gospel of St. Mark, 
and the Grospel and Acts of St. Luke; for no especial reason is evident 
why their words should be infallible. They were not apostles; and we 
do not read of their having any peculiar Divine commission to teach 
Christianity to the world. Now this consideration opens another 
chasm [For the disciples of Mr. IngersoU] under the feet of Bible 
Protestants, which would be of itself fatal to them. It is this: what 
certainty have they, after all, that the books of the Bible were written 
by inspired men, and that no others were? Why do they admit just 
these, and reject others? How do they know for sure even that these 
were written by the authors to whom they are commonly ascribed ? 
[Questions like those IngersoU asked. 42:400]. For one thing, do 
they know for sure who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, or even the 
Gospel themselves? May it not have been some quite irresponsible 
or merely private author? [Nearly as hard on the Bible as I am, eh?J 



308 

What critical or scholarly ability or learning can ever give us the cer- 
tainty we need on matters like these, where Divine faith is so much 
needed, and error so dangerous? The fact is, that this blind faith in 
the Bible, as the Protestants have the book, got together for us Eng- 
lish-speakipg people under King James, but trusted in as if it had 
been brought to earth visibly and publicly by an angel from heaven 
[Just like the Blessed Virgin "brought to earth visibly" the Rosary 
of St Dominic (43:470), or the Scapular of Simon Stock (5:799)], is 
an act far more unreasonable and groundless than any which they even 
charge us Catholics with making" (45:26, 27). 

Do you Protestants hear that, that your "blind faith in the Bible 
* * * is an act for more unreasunable and groundless than any 
which" you even charge "Catholics with making," as for instance the 
charge of heresy in "Mariolatry," because you do not believe — and 
rightfully, too — that the Blessed Virgin cannot hear over 46,000 pray- 
ers every second of time? [See-saw is a good gam« it is said, ahem.] 

"Easebius, Bishop of Coesarea, the celebrated ecclesiastical his- 
torian, writing in the early part of the fourth century, tells us that 
several of the books now accepted wore then in doubt" (45:51). How 
can this be possible if God preserves from error — doubt — the Pope? 
Why did he not get into St. Peter's chair, which seems to be so super- 
naturally endowed that any one sitting in it cannot err, and decide for 
a certainty which books to accept? 

"Cotelerius affims that Origen and Jerome esteemed it [The Gen- 
eral Epistle of Barnabas, a companion and fellow-preacher with Paul], 
genuine and canonical." 311:145, If that is a fact, then, why have 
we not the general Epistle of Barnabas in the Bible? 

Is it not plainly evident that the Bible is a man-made collection 
of writings, the authors of many books of which are in doubt, and 
that it is not, therefore, a "plenary inspired" Book of which "every 
word and syllable is true?" And so long as that is the case why, then, 
should we hesitate to purge it of all God-dishonoring and woman- 
degrading passages? Surely, if we are guided with the "arms of the 
intellect," faculties which God gave us to use, and which are a safer 
guide than mere faith without understanding, then we cannot do any- 
thing but right in purging the Bible of all of its dross and chaff, 
which has been so "misunderstood and misinterpreted even by honest 
and enlightened minds, even by theologians themselves." 40:21. 

The cause for so much misunderstanding and misinterpretation, 



309 

"even by theologians themselves," lies in the fact that we have taken 
the letter of the Bible for the spirit of it. Whun it says: "Eat this 
book," we have, as it were, literally eaten its leaves and bindihg, over- 
looking the fact that it was meant we "Should imbibe — eat — its contents 
— word, thought, spirit, — and as soon as we see this error then religion 
will be a matter of the operation of the mind by an act of the will, 
instead of a "supernatural" operation of material rites and ceremonies 
performed on or over the body. Then we will see that to be "born 
again" is not an ablution of the body, but a conversion, regenerating, 
changing the spirit of our mind by an act of the will. Then we will 
see that to put on Christ, it is not the "frequentation of the Echaristic 
table," and washing down into the stomach, with a table spoon full of 
water, Christ — God — in the wafer, but that to ijut on Christ is done 
through the operation of the mind — the assimilating organ of the soul 
— by an act of the will. We will then see that no sin is forgiven un- 
less it is forsaken and restitution and confession to the wronged one 
is made. We will then see that the best service and worship we can 
render Grod is to treat all His creatures, be they black or white, rich 
or poor, male or female, with the Grolden Rule of doing "right unto 
others regardless of what others do unto you,"' as a woman — the being 
for whom "it is a shame to speak in the Church" — so ably expressed it. 

But why should it be "a shame for a woman to speak in the 
Church," if the Church is God's house, woman is His creature, and 
He is "not a respecter of persons?" It may not be proper for her to 
speak in the Church, but that is no reason that it is a "shame' ' should 
she do so, is it? a. f . y. The passage plainly shows that the Bible is not 
a "ijlenary inspired" Book, but that some pai-ts of it was written by 
crusty old bachelors who, probably, some time during their youth 
were disappointed in love, or who were "hen-pecked" luisbands, and 
saw an opportunity of getting even with the women for it, Will it be 
a "shame" for woman to speak in heaven ? If not, why should it be a 
"shame" for her to speak in the Church in which the same God is 
supposed to dwell as is the one who is in Heaven? 

If God is no resjjecter of persons, and it will not be a "shame" 
for woman to speak in heaven, then, why should it be a "shame" for 
her to speak in the Church? Is that not a woman-degrading passage 
that should be purged from the Bible? And the sooner that it is done 
the better will it be for Christianity. 

It may be seen, then, that the Bible, as a whole, is not a "plenary 



310 

inspired," infallible authority. Not being such, I see no reason, then, 
why we should fear to tamper with it, or hesitate to purge it of all its 
contradictions, errors, woman-degrading passages and God-dishonoring 
blasphemies, and to revise it by using the words which convey, in 
unmistakable terms, the meaning commonly attributed to them. When 
that is once done then there will not be that great diversity of relig- 
ious opinions and Churches, but we will then have "One Church" 
which will appeal to every normal human being, who will be guided 
by reason, understanding and common sense, rather than by blind, 
unreasonable, iin thinking, faith. 

Much more could be said on the subject, but as a chain is no 
stronger than its weakest link, I do not deem it necessary to say it, for 
I have, unquestionably, broken more than one link in the claim of 
"plenary inspiration;" or that "every word and every syllable" is true; 
or that it contains no contradictions, or human-made laws which Dr. 
Dowie has pointed out (123:21), etc. And with the chain broken 
what is it worth in supporting an authority that is claimed to be 
infallible? 

In proving mathematically — and mathematics is from God — that 
it is utterly impossible for the Blessed Virgin to hear so many praj^ers 
addressed to Her — which is over 46,000 every second of time — does 
that not break a link in the claim of the Infallibility of the Pope, 
because re has written encyclicals on the Rosary, which is a prayer 
addressed principally to the Blessed Virgin ? And if the Pope is not pre- 
served from error in the one case mentioned, he certainly is no more 
infallible in all matters of doctrine and religion than you or I or any 
one else is. Is that not so? And if the Pope is not infallible, then, 
why should Moses, Peter. John and Paul be regarded as infallible? 
And if they were no more infallible than the Pope is, then why should 
their writings be any more infallible than are the writings of the 
Popes, given ex cathedra? 

If, then, the writers of the Bible were not infallible how, then, 
can the Bible be infallible? And if the Bible is not infallible— a fact 
which I have irrefutably established in this chapter — then why should 
we not purge from it all God-dishonoring and woman-degrading pas- 
sages; all errors and contradictions, and revise it, using plain, unmis- 
takable, unambiguous words, which convey the meaning attributed to 
them? 

Is there any sense in having the many church denominations. 



311 

entailing a useless burden on the followers of each Church? Is there 
more than the one Grod and Jesus Christ in whom the believers believe? 
Is there a different standard of morals for different people? Do they 
want to go to a different heaven — the husband to one and the wife to 
another? If not, then, why should there be the different Churches 
which are different routes to heaven? 

One writer believes that these "various organizations in the 
Christ's name" better serves the "intellectual, social, moral and spirit- 
ual nature" of humanity, because his "taste does not suit another's, 
nor does the other's" his; that "the many men of many minds will be 
best served in Christ by the many Churches of many kinds," and "it is 
therefore that in Divine Providence these many denominations have 
come to be and to be each one so richly owned and blest of Grod;" that 
"they have been established and built up with praye:s and serious 
convictions and under divine guiduance" (48:135). 

That is why the Catholic Church, "under Divine guidance," bap- 
tizes a ten day old infant, because it is necessary for the Catholic 
child's salvation; the Dowieite, also "under Divine guidance," baptizes 
not babies but only "those who repent and believe" (97:19), and, then, 
that must be triune immersion; and the Mormon, "under Divine 
guidance," says that "it is solemn mockery before God that ye should 
baptize little children (104:480, Moroni). 

If then the nnbaptized Catholic infant dies it will go to hell, but 
if it is an infant of a Dowieite or Mormon, if it dies without baptism, 
it will not go to hell, all this "under Divine guidance," and in the face 
of "warrant of S(rii)ture" that God is no respecter of persons. 

How is that for "taste" that doesn't suit another's? Is God a dif- 
ferent God to a Catholic than He is to a Dowieite, or Mormon, or 
Baptist, or a Christian Scientist? Yet according to the writer quoted 
"they have been established and built up with prayers and serious 
convictions and under Divine guidance." Is that not a blasphemous 
lie? Has God a different standard of morals for any according to their 
individual "tastes," and "intellectual, social, moral and spiritual" 
natures? Is drunkenness not a sin for every one, no matter what their 
"taste" may be? Is adultery not a sin for every one, no matter what 
their "taste" may be? Is stealing not a sin for every one, no matter 
what their "taste" may be? Is extortion not a sin for every one, no 
matter what their '-taste" may be? Is dishonesty not a sin for every 
one, no matter what their "taste may be? Is God going to consult 



312 

our "taste" before He formulates His standard of morals for his 
creatures? Does he require the baptism of Catholic children, before 
He will admit them to heaven, but not of Dowieites. Mormons, and 
Christian Scientists, because of "taste"? 

It is a false belief, based on an "infallible authority" that is like 
wax, and which can be twisted to suit — made "warrant of Scripture" — 
any doctrine that one wants to invent. And all because the letter, 
instead of the spirit of a self-contradictory, erroneous, God-hishonor- 
ing, and woman-degrading "Infallible" Book has been taken! 

Do you not think, then, that it is about time to purge and revise 
the Bible so that it shall be a one standard of morals for all, regardless 
of what one's "taste" inay be, and that it 'can no longer be distorted 
and twisted — be made "warrant of Scripture" — so as to support any 
doctrine any blind person — who throws away reason, intellect, and 
common sense — may invent? 

Let us have a Bible that will teach the religion of humanity, 
which Jesus taught, that we may know that God is more pleased with 
lis if we treat his children accoiding to the Golden Rule, than He is 
in our observance of rites, ceremonies, dogmas, doctrines, and creeds 
which puts the gold on the church steeple instead of feeding the 
hungry on the ground. 

It is this false, erroneous belief, that we labor under, that will set 
altars costing $8,000 in a church, the "parish which numbered about 
300 families, mostly of the laboring class" (19: — ). That comes jjretty 
near putting the gold on the church steeple, instead of putting the 
bread into the mouths of those on the ground, does it not. a. f. y. 

And yet that is an expenditure for the requirements of a belief 
that has taken the letter for the spirit of the Bible, and which believes 
that to put on the spirit and life of Christ one must contribute toward 
building costly meet dweeling places of marble and gold for God, and 
where He is made of the "slime of the earth" and where people may 
"feed upon" His "blessed body" (49:217), instead of making their 
hearts meet dwelling places, and putting on His spirit and life through 
the'operation of the mind by an act of the will. 

Should not, then, an authority be so revis,ed that there would be 
no more question about what was meant by the teachings of Jesus? 
If that were done, we would have a difPerent view from that which we 
now have, as to what constitutes the highest worship and the most jjleas- 
ing service we can give-to God, and the world would, as a consequence 



313 

of a general iiractice of this new view, be changed from a "vale 
of tears" into the kingdom of God on earth. And should we not all 
strive to hasten such a millennium? And how can it be the quicker 
brought about than by purging and revising the Bible so that it will 
appeal, in its purity and simplicity and reasonableness, to all reasona- 
able, thinking and fair-minded persons, so, that they may, then, stand 
on a common platform of brotherly love and Christian unity. And 
does any one doubt that the world would not be better off with One 
Church, such as Jesus pra3'ed for that we may be one day (John IT:), 
than with the many Churches such as we have them to-day? And, as 
I knew that the Catholic Church w^ould never yield one iota, and be 
willing to make any concessions in favor of meeting a part of the way, 
the demands of the "separated brethren," I saw no other way to bring 
about a union than by using the same weapons — the "arms of the 
intellect." with which she challenges the infidel world to a mortal 
combat — in attacking her teachings, so likewise I believed that a 
union of Protestantism and Catholicism is not possible unless their 
infallible authority — the Bible — was attacked with the "arms of the 
intellect," and which I have accordingly done. 

Therefore, I trust all will use the "arms of the intellect," here- 
after, instead of mere faith or an infallible authority, when trying to 
arrive at a religious conviction. And if they will do so, Christian 
unity will result as an inevitable consequence of such a process of 
inquiry. 

Let us all strive, then, to bring about the consummation for which 
Jesus prayed. 

The next subject we will consider will be Christian Science, a 
thing which is a protest against the materialism of the age, but which 
has likewise gone to an extreme that is about as harmful as materi- 
alism is. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

The subject now to be considered is one which I believe can 
hardly be made patent to a consistent Christian Scientist that it is 
anything else but the truth, if the following is true: "This [C. S.] 
(Abbreviation for Christian Science), is a psychology of the heart and 
not of the intellect. Intellect is a dethroned king. Its reign is past. 
Its successor is intuition — soul-perception instead of sense-percep- 
tion" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900). 

As it is with the "arms of the intellect" that I intend to demolish 
the fundamental principles of C. S., therefore, I do not expect to con- 
vince a Christian Scientist, with whom the "intellect is a dethroned 
king." that the teachings of C. S. are full of errors, inconsistencies, 
absurdities, contradictions and blasphemies. But I hope at least to 
make that so patent to non-Christian Scientists that none of them will 
ever be "bumfoozled" by C. S., after they once read this book. 

If the "intellect is a dethroned king" with Christian Scientists — 
which seems to be the key that furnishes the reason for their believ- 
ing in it — why, of course, that places them beyond my reach, but that 
does not put their teachings beyond the reach of my weapons, — the 
"arms of the intellect." 

I believe that next to the teachings of the Catholic Church I am 
best schooled in C. S. And it is because of a more than a "super- 
ficial" knowledge that I have of the subject that I believe I have a 
right to speak of it. It was my experience with C. S. that led me to 
the discovery of what 0. S. is in reality. It is in the healing in C. S., 
principally, that misleads one into believing in it. But I will attempt 
to prove, from its own writings, what is the real caiise of the healings 
that take place in C. S. and that is, that they are based on two causes, 
the free scope given to the recuperative laws of nature by stopping 
the drugging of the system with poisonous foreign substances, and on 
the law of suggestion. The fact that they deny the latter proposition 
is nothing more extraordinary than is the claim of the Catholic Church 
that she is the Church instituted by Christ and the Apostles; or that 
the Bible is infallible, as claimed by the "One Infallible Bible 



315 

Church;" or that the devil is the cause of all our diseases and sick- 
nesses, as Dr. Dowie claims; or that God is no more everywhere than 
you or I am, as a Mormon elder claims. 

The way I came to try C. S. was the appeal of its physical healing 
which it offered me. I had been afflicted for about six years and 
could get no relief from materia medica — doctors and drugs. In fact 
more than once I had to give up materia medica or it would have 
buried its mistake, and then it would have been said that it was 
"Grod's will." For a time I had completely dispensed with materia 
medica and seemed to improve in every way excepting in my back — 
on account of the spine having been injured in that street car mishap, 
already mentioned, but not knowing it at the time — which got, what a 
C. S. sympathizer called, a "kink" in it. This "kink in the back" did 
not hurt me unless I would stand too long at one time, or would want 
to run to catch a street car, or would attempt to lift anything quite 
heavy. Well, I went about with this "kink in the back" for a year or 
so, and as it did not seem to heal of itself I was finally persuaded to 
give C. S. a trial, it having been recommended to me by intimate 
acquaintances and others. 

I was given tracts to read a short time before I was finally per- 
suaded to try C. S. and among them was one that appealed to me so 
strongly that I certainly could have been looked upon as very bigoted, 
prejudiced and narrow-minded had I refused to follow its suggestion, 
that is, of investigating C. S. I had for years earnestly prayed — and 
I have already given you what was the incentive for joraying thus — to 
be restored to health, with no answer received, that the following cer- 
tainly ought to have appealed to me if I, at all, believed in Grod and 
His promises made to us through His Son, Jesus Chi-ist. 

"If there should be one Christian to read thsse lines who has 
prayed long and earnestly for some great blessing, let me ask you, at 
the outset, if you will not seriously consider these words from the lips 
of the Son of Grod. 'If i/e abide in ine and my words abide in you, 
ye nhall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.'' Do you 
hnoiv this to be true? Perchance you are not a Christian Scientist. 
Some friend may have loaned you this tract with the hope that it 
might aid you in finding the mind in which you 'live and move and 
have your being.' If so, let me ask again. Do you know that the God 
whom you worship will hear your cry, heed your desire and satisfy the 
longing of your heart i* 

There is a vast difference between knowing and believing. You 



316 

may believe that your j^rayer will receive attention because your Grod 
is good and you are His child; but have you proved it? 

You may be bound by the fetters of some physical ailment [Like 
the "kink in the back"] aiid may have prayed for years to be restored 
to health. If you have, has it not seemed strange [Yes it has], very 
strange to you sometimes (when Jesus has said — 'Ye shall know the 
truth and the truth shall make you free'), that your Heavenly Father 
has been silent when you called upon him? Would you, possess a 
human love, withhold an answer from a child in sorrow, for one, two, 
three, five, ten years and give no reason why? If not then why has 
God withheld from you the blessing of perfect health — wholeness? If 
by a word He could call into being 'all things that were made,' why 
has he withheld from you His w^ord of restorative power and allowed 
you to wait and suffer and pray, day after day, and year on year, until 
your hope is well nigh gone, and the days are dark and dreary * * * 
because God cometh not in answer to your call? Oh, tell me if you 
know these words are true? 'Ask what ye will and it shall be done 
unto you.' You hardly dare to doubt them entirely because they are 
the words of Jesus and you have promised to love Him and believe 
Him. * * * Do you know them to be absolutely true? They 
came from the Son of the Living God and how can they be false? 
Now, if you will walk in the way He i^ointed out for you, if you will 
believe — understand Him, you may prove. His words to be both 
truth and life. Christian Scientists have the positive proof every day 
they live that this iDromise of the Son of God is absolutely true. "Will 
you also learn how to reach the same position of peaceful, tnistful 
certainty? Those who are able to comprehend these words cau call 
down relief for their afflicted friends in less time than it takes to read 
this article [and yet C. S. Ds. and other C. S. healers could not "call 
down relief for me after trying.it for weeks to do so]. Do you 
want the same understanding? * * * Do you want to know and 
prove to your own waiting heart that Jesus meant just what He said 
in the words — 'ash what ye iv'dl^ and it shall he done unto you'? If 
you do then investigate C. S. Make up your mind to persist in your 
investigations until you catch the spirit of the truth whi'^.h it teaches; 
and you will not be disajipointed. You will receive an answer to your 
prayer. And if you are sick you ivill be healed, for God is Good and 
He is your Father." Tract, "Is Your Prayer Answered?" 

Should not such a tract induce one to investigate the teachings of 



317 

C. S. as much so as would a tract of the Catholic Church, which 
showed by her credentials — but not by her teachings — that she is the 
Church established by Christ and the Apostles, induce one to investi- 
gate her teachings for spiritual food if one hungered for it as I yearned 
for physical healing? Well that was what I did, and so on June 
1st, 1897, I placed myself unreservedly in the hands of C. S. At the 
time that I did so I could walk seventeen blocks from my home to 
the store, and could do so without cane or crutch. After over eight 
months ti'ial in C. S. it succeeded so well to "call down relief" for me, 
that I got the "belief" that I could not, with two canes, ^alk three 
blocks to a street car that would take me home, so that I had to be 
taken home in a hack. That was on February 15, 1898, and I have 
since that day not had one day in which I was not more or less help- 
less. The "belief" of the "kink in the back" was as nothing in com- 
parison with the "belief" that I had after giving twelve difPerent heal- 
ers a chance to "call down relief for their afflicted friends," of which I 
was one at that time. 

They were no more successful in their attempt to "change the 
belief, and that disappears which before seemed to it real (109:193), 
in me, than they were in changing the belief in themselves that I did 
not owe them any money before I bad paid them for calling "down 
relief" for me, for every one of them, with one exception, accepted 
money, and some even sent duns when they did not get the money as 
soon as they thought they should have received it. 

My experience with them convinced me that C. S. is, indeed, a 
"psychology of the heart," for how otherwise could they demand and 
accept money when they saw that I was getting worse under their 
treatments? 

Certainly the fault did not lie with me, for when I began to take 
treatments I had the faith of a credulous child, believing that I would 
be healed so quickly so as to surprise my people. But instead I was 
surprised that "those who are able to comprehend these words can call 
down relief for their afflicted friends in less time than it takes to read 
this article," could not do so after all, and that that Tract was only so 
much "verbiage" with which to "bumfoozle" me. 

I do not deny that persons, who had been given up by materia 

'medica, have been healed after coming into C. S., but it was not 

through the application of the principles of C. S., but because the 

stopping of the medicines gave the recuperative healing laws of nat"re 



318 

an opportunity to assert themselves. I know that from my own expe- 
rience. When a few years ago I discharged materia medica, I was 
really in such a condition that had I not done so at the time I feel 
satisfied that it would have buried its mistake. I had, in one sense of 
the word, a complication of diseases, and was getting worse right 
along until I gave up materia medica. I had then an affected stomach 
so that I could not take any nourishment but what it would cause me 
griping pains. My kidneys were badly affected. My liver pained me 
when I would turn on my side. My lungs were in such a condition 
that I would spit blood. About the only nourishment I could take 
then was egg-nogg, and that food purged me so that it in reality weak- 
ened me instead of strengthening me. I was also told that I had the 
dropsy. My eyes were also affected so that I could not read but about 
an hour at a time, and that only for a time or two a day, for they 
would then become so blurred thfit I could not see to read anything 
no matter how large the print was. 

Now, that was my condition when I gave u^d materia medica. Be- 
sides that I had the intense joains in my hip- joints that had required 
daily injections for two months to somewhat ease the i^ains. ' Was that 
not a complication of diseases such that has caused many a one to 
pass on? Yet within two months after giving up materia medica I 
had improved so much in my appearances, that those who saw me just 
before I gave up materia medica, and saw me again two months after- 
wards, commented on it, saying, "Oh, how much improved you look 
since the last time I saw you." And this improvement took place 
during the months of Jxily and August, which are months not highlj- 
favorable for xDutting on flesh. Besides that, my kidneys had become 
normal again; my appetite and digestive organs had also become about 
normal again in that time, and they are now normal again and have 
been so for some time, because I can digest any kind of food that is 
placed before me to eat. I do not diefmyself, and can assimilate any 
food that I eat, no matter what it is, be it pork, sauer-kraut, beans, 
bacon, steak, chicken, potatoes, "devil's food" cake, mince pie, ice 
cream, bananas, buttermilk, sweet milk, etc., all in one meal or not 
makes no difference. 

But there is a system in connection with eating such a conglom- 
erate meal, and that is this: thoroughly masticate, or "chew," the food 
so that it is like a pulp, and have every bit of it thoroughly saturated 
with gastric juice, or saliva, before it enters the stomach. When food 



319 

enters the stomach iu that condition it is bound to be assimilated, 
provided one takes no more than the system requires To overload 
the stomach, even with the food thoroughly saturated with saliva — the 
digesting fluid — is just as injurious to it as too much rain is to grow- 
ing crops. Of course, to eat so that the food is in the condition just 
described, takes a little more time than it does to give it a few bites 
and, then wash it down into the stomach with tea, cotfee or milk, the 
way so many eat, who lead a so-called "strenuous life," which makes 
them dyspeptics when yet in the prime of life, and even before that 
time. But then one can do more work when one's digestive organs 
are in good condition than one can with dyspepsia, headache, consti- 
pation, etc., irritating one. 

Which is the true life, the one that goes at a slow i^ace and reaches 
maturity, or the one that has the "elictric'" pace and ends in an un- 
natural — that is, diseased — death before half the meridian of life has 
been reached? a. f. y. 

My eyes are also normal again, for I can now, and have for some 
time, been able to read from ten to fourteen hours daily, whether lying 
down or not makes no difference, and they do not pain me either, nor 
do I use glasses. If then I underwent so miraculous — as one might 
call it— a change in my vital organs and eye sight in a few month's 
time, with no other prescription or application of any remedy but the 
stopping of materia medica, does that not i^rove that one may have 
died on the hands of materia medica where afterwards ones life was 
spared by giving up materia medica, whether one had C. S. or not? 

All diseases that would heal of their own accord, were they not 
kept from healing by poisonous substances, such as drugs are com- 
posed of more or less, are the ones that can be healed in C. S., but 
those that never would heal of their own accord, as for instance a 
"kink in the back" of an injured spine, or other diseases that are re- 
garded as incurable when left to the recuperative healing laws of 
nature, cannot be healed in C. S. Take for instance consumption. 
C. S. has never healed a real case of consumption. It has healed 
cases where it was believed the patient had consumption, in fact 
doctors have diagnosed it as such. I know of cases where doctors 
diagnosed diseases as consumption, and said the patients conld not, at 
the most, live two years longer, yet are alive to-day, and these diag- 
noses took place over twenty years ago. 

In 1892, just after giving up at another time materia medid. I had 



320 

such a siege of coughing that people, living on the street along which 
I had to go on my way home to and from the store, noticed it, and 
also noticed that I had recovered from it. For in 1893 a lady custo- 
mer came to the store and asked me what remedy I had used that 
cured my consumption. She said she had a friend who had consump- 
tion, and thought probably the remedy that cured me might help her 
friend. I told her that I had no consumption that I knew of, and had, 
therefore, not taken anything for it. She then said that she thought 
surely that I had had consumption the year before, because I looked 
so poorly then and had coughed so much. 

It may be seen then that what are believed to be certain incurable 
diseases do not always exist where they are believed to exist. I know 
of cases, however, where persons had really consumption and who died 
on the hands of 0. S. healers. It may also be seen from the experi- 
ences which I have had, that so-called incurable diseases in the hands 
of materia medica may become curable when taken out of its hands, 
even though nothing is done but the stopping of the taking of medi- 
cines. In this way many are mislead as to what is the real cause of 
their healing which they experience when they come into C S., for 
that is the first requisite, for anyone coming into C. S., to give up all 
material remedies. And in doing that it gives free scope to the re- 
cuperative and healing laws of nature so that they can assert them- 
selves, which will result in healing, if it is not an incurable case such 
as, for instance, a "kink in the back," in an injured spine. 

The fact that healings in C. S. are prolonged over periods of from 
days to years, proves conclusively that it is according to the law of 
growth of the healing forces of nature, unobstructed by foreign sub- 
stances taken into the system in the form of drugs, that is doing the 
healing, and that it is not because of the application of the principles 
of C. S., or according to Christ. That fact is unwittingly admitted by 
Col. Sabin when he says, not, of course, as a Christian Scientist but 
as a Christologist, which is an idly disguised imitation of C. S., that 
"all healing is done by virtue of God's natural laws. The Unchangea- 
ble, Undeviating, Eternal Father, does everything in accordance with 
fixed laws (136:732, Sept. 1901. Are not "God's natural laws" healing 
in their nature? If one burns, cuts, or bruises one's self does not the 
law of nature heal those accidents in time, if they are not so serious as 
to be fatal? So likewise is it with the healing of disease, be the 
afflicted persons in the hands of materia medica, C. S. or left to them, 
selves. 



321 

There are, no doubt, cases where persons would be healed by 
giving up materia medica and accepting C. S., and also cases where 
persons would be healed by giving up C. S. and using materia medica, 
and also cases where they would be healed without either of them. 
Take for instance diphtheria. That disease can better be handled by 
materia medica than by C. S., because it is a disease at which one can 
get by mopping the throat and removing the poisonous substance in 
the throat, while indigestion or stomach troubles can be better handled 
by C. S. than by materia medica, because what that disease requires 
is a cessation of the pouring into the stomach of drugs which are 
more or less poisonous, and that is one of the fundamental principles 
of C. S. to stop the use of material remedies. 

In that way, then, one may be healed in 0. S. of indigestion or 
stomach troubles where one would not be healed in materia medica. 
I know that to be a fact from my own experience, that materia medica 
has not only failed to heal stomach troubles, but has given it to one 
by pouring into the stomach such drugs that would make an erstwhile 
well person sick. 

I will now quote from the writings of C. S. to prove to you that 
the healings that take place in C. S. are not according to Christ, but 
according to the healing laws of nature, and to the law of suggestion. 

"The younger boy was treated four weeks, his trouble appearing 
three or four times within that time. After that it appeared once, I 
think about six months later, which was the last time" (37:202, June 
1899). [Did it take Christ and the Apostles "six months" to remove 
the last symptoms of a disease they healed?] 

Here is a case of "nervous dyspepsia to cancer of the stomach:" 

"I went to a C. S. healer, and in a few weeks I was free to eat 
whatever I desired with impunity. I then gained in strength and 
weight rapidly, [Just as I did during the July and August already 
mentioned] and in a few months [Just as it would have been with me 
had I no 'kink in the back'] I was as well and strong as ever" (Ibid 
208). 

The word "impunity" here reminds me of a testimonial which a 
man gave of his wife in a C. S. experience meeting which I once 
attended. She was probably too timid to face an audience and tell of 
her healing in C. S., so her husband did it for her. He told of her 
indigestion and stomach troubles, and how she had been healed in C. 
S. That she could now "eat anything with impunity." The reason I 



322 

remember that so well is because I did not then know the definition 
of "impunity," so that when I got home I looked up its meaning in 
the dictionary. Well, within two years after that testimonial was 
given, of her miraculous healing, I saw a notice in the daily papers of 
her death, she having died of stomach troubles. 

At one time, when I was "self-deceived, self-hypnotized, self- 
mesmerized" (138:9), as a former Christian Scientist says Christian 
Scientists are, I would have testified in one of those experience meet- 
ings, had I had the courage and ability to express myself as some 
have, of how much I had been benefited since I began the investiga- 
tion of C. S. But I can tell you that I am thankful now that I did 
not have the ability then to get up before an audience and tell of my 
counting the chickens before they were hatched. 

Here is a healing of rheumatism : 

"My healing was slow, [According to the law of growth] but I 
improved daily, and in seven weeks I was able to ride four blocks, and 
in thirteen weeks went by rail one hundred miles" (137:728, Jan. 
1899). 

I have a record that beats that, before I had a "kink in the back." 
When I was about eighteen years old, I plowed for corn, and as a rule 
we used to plow rather deep for com, One day in May, after nearly a 
week of cloudy weather, it cleared oflp and the change in the weather 
was quite sudden from being cool to becoming quite warm. As I had 
been accustomed, in former years, to walk bare-footed when plow- 
ing, if it was warm enough, I went bare-footed on this particular day, 
from about ten o'clock in the morning until about three in the after- 
noon, the subsoil being so cold that I could no longer endure it so 
that I pulledj on my boots again, and plowed with them on the re- 
mainder of the day. 

The next day I did not feel right and the second day after I 
awoke in the morning with an acute attack of inflammatory rheuma- 
tism that seemed to affect every joint in my body. The doctor was 
sent for and he prescribed medicines for me until I became so sick 
that I could no longer take any more medicines, they being so bitter. 
As we lived about seven miles from town, and the others being so 
much the more busy with farm work, on account of the shortage of 
help occasioned by my illness, they did not at once go to see the 
doctor about it. 

In a few days I began to improve so that I began to eat a little 



323 

again, not having eaten hardly anything for some time, because the 
medicines had upset my digestive organs. When I began to improve 
gradually in my appetite, although I had spells yet of intense pains, 
we concluded to wait a few days to see what turn the disease would 
take before going to see the doctor again. Well, I continued to im- 
prove and within four weeks I was so well and strong again that I 
took a wagon in the field, stacking wheat, and worked alongside of the 
other men the same as though I had never been sick. 

Now, what was it that healed me so soon of such a severe attack 
of inflammatory rheumatism? I did not know a thing then about it 
whether C. S. existed or not. Yet I was healed after giving up ma- 
teria medica which had in reality made me worse. After I was healed, 
we had about half of the medicines left that had been prescribed and. 
which I could not take because they were so bitter. Does that not 
prove that my healing was in accordance with the healing laws of 
nature, and resulted thus whether it was or was not in connection with 
C. S.? 

That is just the way the healings occur in C. S., and because of 
not understanding or knowing that that is the real cause of the heal- 
ings, persons are misled into believing that it is due to the applica- 
tion of the principles of 0. S. that effects the healing. Here is 
another case which proves my assertion: 

"The Scientist gave me daily treatment for more than a year, and 
occasional help for a long time after that. While I was much bene- 
fited, satisfied, encouraged, and hopeful, my healing was very, very 
slow. I had a long relapse" (187:763, Feb. 1899). 

Did you ever hear of a healing of Christ and the Apostles that 
was "very, very slow," and which had a "long relapse?" 

"To those who experience slow healing I would say. Do not be 
discouraged. I have been in C. S. five years and am not entirely 
healed yet" (Ibid. 802). [I wonder if that is another case of a "kink 
in the back," because one is "not entirely healed yet," after having 
been in C. S. five years?] 

That person had better waited in counting the chickens before 
they were hatched; five years in 0. S. and "not entirely healed yet." 
That is certainly according to Christ where he told them but once to 
"Arise and walk," and they got up and walked. 

"I were ungrateful not to mention my own case of healing of a 
very severe case of acute indigestion and gastritis. From repeated 



324 

attacks I had become very much emaciated, unable to partake of any 
solid food, and, to mortal sense, about to pass away, when a Christian 
Scientist was summoned. I immediately began to improve, and in 
three weeks was entirely healed" (58:837, Aug. 23, 1900). 

The above is almost a parallel of an experience I had once. While 
I was bedridden, years ago, I had such a good appetite that one Sun- 
day I ate so much as to overload my stomach and to cause me such an 
attack of acute indigestion and gastritis that my people thought I 
would "pass away." The priest was sent for and he did not stop to 
feel of my pulse to see whether or not to give me Extreme Unction, 
but post haste gave it to me, because those who saw me at the time 
thought I was a "sure goner" this time, for they told me afterwards 
that I had those twirlings of the eyes and twitchings of the counte- 
nance which betokened sure death. This was on the Tuesday after 
that Sunday on which I ate too much. Sunday night about ten 
o'clock I began to vomit and I kept it up, at intervals of about twenty 
minutes, from that time until the following Tuesday about three 
o'clock. During all that time I could take no food, not even drink 
water. And I vomited so much that my people all wondered where 
so much putrid matter could come from. The last six hours or so of 
vomitings had a green scum on them, and not having taken a particle 
of food during all that time, and having then already been bedridden 
for months my prospect for a recovery indeed seemed all to have van- 
ished. 

We had no doctor at the time, for when my people asked me if 
they should call in a doctor for me, I said. No, for I wanted to pass 
on, because I had given up all hope of ever getting off the bed again 
alive, and not being afraid of the other life I wanted to go to it, and 
wanted to pass on. Yet before the end of the week I had recovered 
so much so that I could eat anything again, but, of course, in more 
measurable quantities than I ate before the attack. I have not since 
that day had any more trouble with my stomach, which was a healing 
in less time than the three weeks required by the Christian Scientist 
above quoted. 

A few weeks after my attack of acute indigestion and gastritis, I 
saw in a daily paper an item of a young man, who had the same kind 
of an attack as I had, and who had a doctor, the doctor's name being 
mentioned, who died of his attack. Now, the reason, no doubt, that I 
recovered and the young man did not was because I took no bitter. 



325 

strong medicines to still further irritate the already inflamed stomach 
and bowels, while the young man did because he had a doctor who 
prescribed just those medicines that, instead of assisting the healing 
laws of nature, retarded their operation, with the result that death 
ensued. Does that not prove conclusively, then, that the healings 
that take place in C. S. are due to the causes which I have stated, 
already, and that they are not because of the application of the prin- 
ciples of C. S.? 

I will now attempt to prove to you that an underlying principle 
of C. S. is suggestion. A former Christian Scientist, who, it seems, 
counted the chickens before they were hatched, — for he says: 

"One night, six or seven months after I had commenced this 
study, about one or two o'clock in the morning, while working in my 
library, the understanding as known by Christian Scientists came to 
me as bright and clear as ever did the rising sun." [He must have 
been, then, "self-deceived, self-hypnotized, self-mesmerized," for he 
afterwards must have discovered that the "understanding as known 
by Christian Scientists" did not come to him at that time "as bright 
and clear as ever did the rising sun,'" because it was made so "bright 
and clear" to him afterwards that he had to write a book entitled 
"Christology — Science of Health and Happiness," a book about which 
an adherent of Mrs. Eddy said, "I would not pollute my hands by 
touching that book. I would throw it in that stove (pointing to a 
stove while speaking)!!" Yet an adherent of Col. Sabin thinks "God 
called you to help proclaim His truths to the world" (133:729, Sept. 
1901), so that were the Israelites of Old Testament days alive to-day 
they might find it a hard task to maintain their claim that they are 
the only "chosen" of God] gave his testimony of how he was healed. 
Here is a part of it on which I wish to comment: "I went to the per- 
son's house and made known what I had come for. I informed the 
party that I had no faith in Christian Science, or any power to heal 
as they claimed they could do, but I had a very severe pain and was 
willing to have a test and see whether there was any virtue in their 
claim of healing, for which I would pay all charges. She took a seat 
across the room from me, crossed her hands in her lap, [My healers 
always held a handkerchief to their eyes, with one of their hands] shut 
her eyes, and as I supposed was praying to God. [But instead she 
was suggesting to him, mentally, "You are well, and you know it" 
(124:220)]. I immediately went to sleep. [What is the difference 



326 

between that immediate sleep, and "hypnotism — from the Greek word 
signifying sleep" (22:88)]? At the end of fifteen minutes I awoke 
with the pain entirely gone, and the little scientist still with her eyes 
shut and her hands crossed in the attitude of prayer" (137:704, 706, 
Jan. 1899). 

Taking the experience of Col. Sabin's in that treatment where he 
"immediately went to sleep," and "that the hypnotic sleep can be 
induced independently of personal contact" (22:89), and that "The 
healer begins by mental argument. He mentally says, 'You are well, 
and you know it' " (124:220), can not "suggestion" be deduced from 
the method of healing in C S.? " 

What is the difference between putting oneself into a passive 
condition to receive the suggestions of the subjective mind of another 
not a Christian Scientist, and the putting of oneself into a "receptive" 
condition to receive the mental arguments of "You are well, and you 
know it" of a C. S. healer? If the law of suggestion is not one of the 
fundamental principles in C. S. then words have no meaning. 

After I had been treated by a number of healers and they had 
not succeeded in calling "down relief" for me, I went to another 
healer for "demonstrations." I asked the healer what I should do 
during the time that I was treated, whether I should pray or not, 
think of anything, or what I should do. The healer said: "Don't do 
anything, but just think nothing." Now what does that mean but to 
put oneself into a receptive condition in order to receive subjectively 
the mental — subjective — suggestions of "You are well, and you know 
it" of the C. S. healer? Is that not as plain as day that that is only 
plain mental suggestion? Is there anything in that that is according 
to the manner in which Jesus and the Apostles healed? Did they not 
always enjoin those who wanted to be healed to have faith instead of 
to "think nothing?" Did they say to those whom they healed, "You 
are well, and you know it?" And did it take all the way from a few 
days to five years to heal any one? 

Well, then, is not "Christian Science" a misnomer for the system 
of healing that rests on the basis of the law of suggestion and goes 
by the name of Christian Science? If C. S. were properly named it 
would be called "Mental Suggestion," which is quite different from 
Christ-healing. In that case, of course. Christian people would have 
nothing to do with it, but label it Christian and it is a go. 

It seems that nowadays that anything that iS labeled Christian, 



327 

no matter how absurd, erroneous, fanatical, nonsensical, and blas- 
phemous it may be it will have plenty believers if it is only zealously 
advocated. 

When Mr. Hudson, who healed a case of rheumatism "a thousand 
miles distant" (22:194) by "Mental Theraputics," had called it "Chris- 
tian Psychic Phenomena," he no doubt could have founded a Church 
and had as great a following as C. S. has, if not a greater following, 
for according to his healing one would not first have to outrage the 
five senses, or tax one's credulity about the non-existence of disease, 
or the blasphemous assumption of the deceitfulness of the senses, and 
of the reality of matter, etc. 

Now that I have, with the "arms of the intellect," irrefutably 
proven that the healings in C. S. are the result of suggestion and the 
operation of the healing laws of nature, which are then given a chance 
to exert themselves by the cessation of the dosing of the system with 
such poisonous matter as drugs are more or less composed of, I will 
now analyze some of its fundamental principles and teachings. 

In her 42d edition of S. and H. (S. and H. abbreviation of Science 
and Health), page 415, Mrs. Eddy says she once taught healing dif- 
ferently from that which she taught it in the 123d edition. She says: 

"When first teaching Mental Science I permitted students to 
manipulate the head, ignorant [Yet she says: "No human pen or 
tongue taught me the Science contained in this book. Science and 
Health" (109:4). It must have been Grod, then, and this certainly 
impeaches His wisdom if He left her "ignorant" "when first teaching 
Mental Science" to her, if He was the one who directed her pen in 
writing S. and H.] that this could harm or hinder the spiritual direc- 
tion of thought." 

She is, therefore, as changeable in her teachings as are the teach- 
ings of any human creation. That she taught healing once where the 
head was manipulated I learned from an acquaintance who knew C. 
S. healers who manipulated the head when giving treatments. At 
that time I had not yet read the S. and H. referred to, in which men- 
tion is made that she permitted such, manipulations of the head, and 
I said to my acquaintance that they were not Mrs. Eddy Christian 
Scientists, for that was not taught in the S. and H. which I had. But 
my acquaintance asserted positively that they were real Mrs. Eddy 
Christian Scientists, which assertion I afterwards believed when I 



328 

subsequently got in my hand the 42d edition of S. and H. and read 
the quotation given above. 

Now, I suppose the reason for such a change in her teachings of 
the mode of treating was, no doubt, due to the claims of non-Christian 
Scientists that C. S. was only a plagiarism of Dr. Quimby's mesmeric 
healing, of which she had had some treatments. 

"Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian 
Science or Metaphysical Healing was gained in 1866. [How well 
that fits in for those who claim that C. S. is only a plagiarism of 
Quimbyism, eh?] * * * He was an uneducated man; but he was 
a distinguished mesmerist, and personally manipulated [Do you see?] 
his patients. This I know, having been one of them" (139:6). 

No wonder she had to change her mode of treatments if she 
wanted to escape the charge that C. S. is only a plagiarism of Quim- 
byism. 

And now to mislead people into believing that C. S. is not a form 
of mesmerism or suggestion she leads them to believe in absurdities 
which requires one to become self -mesmerized, and to make the "intel- 
lect a dethroned king," in order to be able to believe in them. One 
of these absurdities is the testimony of the senses. In order to prove 
that they are illusions she makes use of a number of illustrations. 
One of them is found on page 16 of S. and H., where she says: 

"The optical focus is another proof of the illusion of material 
sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops apparently join hands, 
clouds and ocean meet and mingle." 

Now why is it that "on the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops appar- 
ently join hands?" Is it not because the globe is round and eyes can 
see only in a straight line? If we could see in a circumference, or 
zigzag, or criss-cross, then sky and tree-tops would no more appar- 
ently join hands than they do when one looks straight up into the 
sky. Any one, who has not made the "intellect a dethroned king," 
knows that. 

Again, if our senses were not limited in their scope, just think, 
then, what a confusion there would be. One would then see, hear, 
and smell every object, sound and odor in the world. Would you 
want to be endowed in such a manner? Hardly. Well, then, there 
is no "illusion of material sense," is there? 

Here is another illustration that only a "self-mesmerized, 



329 

self-hypnotized" person, who has made the "intellect a dethroned 
king," could believe in that the senses are deceitful: 

"The barometer, that little prophet of storm and sunshine, — 
denying the testimony of the senses, — points to fair weather, in the 
midst of murky clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of 
instances of similar illusions, which every thinker may recall for him- 
self" (109:16). 

That explains why Christian Scientists, "in the midst of murky 
cloiids and drenching rain," walk along the streets without umbrellas. 
It is "fair weather" to them, because the same deceitful eyes with 
which they see the "murky clouds and drenching rain" become reliable 
when looking at the barometer, which tells them it is "fair weather," 
hence no need of umbrellas. Any one, who has not made the "intel- 
lect a dethroned king," knows that the barometer does not register the 
weather as it takes place, but that it indicates what the weather will 
be in twenty -four or more hours in the future. 

Again, the same eyes which say ti-at it is not fair weather in the 
"midst of murky clouds and drenching rain," and which eye's testi- 
mony is corroborated by the senses of hearing, — for drenching rain 
can be heard falling — feeling, — for drenching rain can be felt by 
going out into it — and tasting, — for one can drink the rain — are, in C 
S. believed to be deceitful in saying so, but if those eyes are used to 
look at a barometer they are reliable, even though unsupported by the 
other senses which supported the eyes when they said it was not fair 
weather in the "midst of murky clouds and drenching rain." 

One may say, "Great God!" do Christian Scientists really believe 
what their text book here teaches, or are they hypocrites for professing 
to believe that which they do not believe? 

But now what is the object of Mrs. Eddy in trying to teach, or 
lead one into believing, that the sense of sight is an illusion? It is 
to use it as a proof that if one's sense of feeling tells one that one 
has pain or feels sick from a disease that it is not a reality, but an 
illusion, because the sense of sight has been proven to be an illusion. 
But has the sense of sight been proved an illusion by the illustra- 
tions which she used above? If not, then if the sense of sight is not 
an illusion is the sense of feeling an illusion if it tells you that you 
are suffering the pains of inflammatory rheumatism, or neuralgia, etc? 
Yet she calls neuralgia an illusion. 

"If you believe in inflamed and weak nerves, you are liable to an 



330 

attack from that source. You will call it neuralgia, but we call it 
illusion" (109:391). 

I will show you now that she contradicts herself and that she 
does not believe that the sense of sight is an illusion. 

"One at Niagara, with eyes [The same that say that "sky and 
tree-tops apparently join hands"] open only to that wonder, forgets all 
else, and breathes aloud his rapture" (109:241). 

Are the senses deceitful if, when one beholds with the sense of 
sight, Niagara, that wonder causes one to breathe "aloud his rapture?" 

But then it is only so xauch "verbiage" and that seems to be ad- 
mired alike by all, be it a Christian Scientist, a Christologist, a Cath- 
olic, a Dowieite, a Theosophist, a One Infallible Bible Churchist, an 
Atheist, an Evolutionist, a Single Taxer, a Socialist, or any other ist, 
makes no difference. 

That Christian Scientists are not consistent in their beliefs that 
the senses are deceitful, etc., may be inferred from their acts. One 
time a healer was called to treat a patient who was somewhat reduced 
in financial circumstances. After a few calls the healer, after survey- 
ing the surroundings, said, "It seems to me that you live here in the 
very dregs of poverty." How could the healer say that .if the healer 
believed the testimony of the senses is not to be taken as evidence? 

At another time a Christian Scientist told a person that that per- 
son did not dress well enough to attend the C. S. church, that people 
who want to belong to the C. S. church must dress well and have 
plenty of money. If the senses are deceitful, then, what difference 
does it make whether one dresses well or has plenty of money or not, 
if one wants to belong to the C. S. church? Another thing, is it not 
a blasphemy to say that the senses are deceitful? Whence are the 
deceitful senses if "Grod, Spirit, is the only cause" (109:182)? 

Of course, C. S. will say that the deceitful senses are due to 
helief. If it is asked what is the cause of such a belief, C. S. says, 
mortal mind. And if it is asked, what is the cause of such a mortal 
mind C. S. says, "Oh, don't bother about the cause of things too 
much," as a Christian Scientist once answered me when I had the 
Christian Scientist cornered on those very subjects just mentioned. 

But it was just because I bothered "about the cause of things too 
much," that led me to the discovery that the first sin ever committed 
was committed without a devil to tempt Lucifer, the first supposed 
devil, and if Lucifer could sin without a personal devil to tempt him, 



331 

then Adam and Eve could do the same, and it makes the doctrine of 
a personal devil a blasphemy. It was just because I bothered "about 
the cause of things too much," that led me to the discovery that the 
Eucharist is nothing more than a piece of baked dough. For had I 
not bothered myself about the question of what becomes of Christ 
when the external forms of bread and wine no longer remain, I would 
not have been led to the discovery that Christ never was in them in 
the first place, a fact which I have proved in another chapter. And 
it was just because I bothered "about the cause of things too much," 
that I was led to the discovery that one must needs make the "intellect 
a dethroned king" before one can believe in the teachings, as a whole, 
of C. S. 

And as I do not yet feel that I ought to give the probate judge 
something to do to earn his salary, I propose to "bother about the 
cause of things" until I find them wherever it is possible to do so, 
whether or not it pleases C. S., Christology, Catholicism, Dowieism, 
Mormonism, Atheism, Agnosticism, or an other ism. I am for Chris- 
tian Unity, and if it cannot be brought about without making anyone 
mad, why then it will have to be done that way, for it is said that 
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." And that is 
what I want to do to destroy sectarian walls, denominational fences, 
and creedal lines. And the only way that can, probably, be accom- 
plished is to turn on the calcium light on the absurdities, contradic- 
tions, fanaticisms, and blasphemies within each corral, even though it 
' should make some mad. 

As I have unquestionably satisfied those, with whom the intellect 
is not a dethroned king, that the testimonies of the senses, — within 
the scope in which we need to use them, — are not "illusions" or de- 
ceitful, we will, in the next chapter, consider the subject of the un- 
reality of matter, which is one of the fundamental principles in C. S. 



CHAPTER XV. 



MATTER. 

Were it not for our belief in matter, says Mrs. Eddy, there would 
be no "sin, sickness and death" (109:174), therefore, she combats 
these theories: 

"(1) That all is matter; [No one but an atheist says "all is mat- 
ter;] (2) that matter originates in Mind, [Mind means God in C. S, 
(109:582)] and is as real as Mind, possessing intelligence and life. 
[Who but an atheist says that matter possesses "intelligence and 
life?"] The first theory, that matter is everything, is quite as reasona- 
ble as the second, that Mind and matter co-exist and co-operate. One 
only of the following statements can be true : ( 1 ) that everything is 
matter; (2) that everything is Mind. Which one is it" (109:165)? 
[It is neither of them]. 

That she must say because she must make her statement good 
that "what is termed disease does not exist" (109:81), and because sin, 
sickness and death are "mortal inventions, one and all" (140:75). 

In the platform of C. S. in S. and H., 14th edition, Vol. 2, Mrs. 
Eddy has this to say: 

"The Scripture saith. 'God is all in all.' We understand this to 
be so, but if God is all, there is nothing for him to enter but Himself. 
[Which would be like a stocking turning itself outside in. Would 
that not be "to enter" itself, because there is nothing else for it to 
enter, supposing, of course, that the stocking "is all," just as "God is 
all''?] All is Mind, there is no matter; all is harmony, there is no 
discord; [Excepting the year 1897 when three C. S. Ds. in a certain 
city maintained three separate churches, then had "harmony" until 
the election of new readers for the year 1898, when "discord" became 
"is," because a C S. D. who wanted to be a reader, was not elected so 
as to give the C. S. D. a chance to exercise the "deceitful" sense of 
sight, and draw every month one hundred or so round chimeras, with 
eagles on them.] * * * Matter was never made and is a chimera, 
a belief, and error * * * A personal God, a personal man, * * * 
and evil and good spirits, are theological mythoplasm" (59:142-152). 

If God is a "theological mythoplasm," how then can He enter 



333 

Himself? Can nothing enter itself? If matter is a "chimera," what 
then causes the belief in the reality of matter, and if "Grod, Spirit, is 
the only cause" (109:182), and "all cause and eflPect are in God" C124: 
93)? If "all cause and effect are in God," then there can be no such 
thing as a "mortal mind" to cause the belief in the reality of matter 
unless God causes that "mortal mind." Is that not so? If "mortal 
mind is a solecism in language," and is "something which has no real 
existence" (109:8), then how in the name of the intellect can it pro- 
duce "its own phenomena" (109:116), such as the belief in the reality 
of matter, sin, and sickness? Can nothing produce something? Om- 
nipotence may produce something where there is nothing, but can 
nothing do that? 

In nearly all the writings of Mrs. Eddy she reiterates the state- 
ment that "there is, strictly speaking, no mortal mind" (141:25). If, 
then, there is "strictly speaking, no mortal mind," then what causes 
the belief in the existence of mattter? 

Of course I do not expect any one, with whom the "intellect is a 
dethroned king," can answer that question, but I wish some one, with 
whom the intellect is not a dethroned king, would answer it for I 
want to get rid of the ej^ithet of being a person of "presumptuous 
ignorance." You see I am willing to acknowledge that I am a person 
of "presumi^tuous ignorance," in order to learn something, and that 
is one of the things I would like to know, what causes the belief in 
the reality of matter, if matter is unreal, non-existent, and there is 
"strictly speaking, no mortal mind" to produce such a belief, and 
"God, Spirit, is the only cause," and "all cause and effect are in God?" 

Is it a fact that there is no matter, because "Science reveals noth- 
ing in Spirit out of which to create matter" (109:174)?. 

I always supposed Spirit, God, was beyond the ken of science and 
could not, therefore, be dissected with the scalpel, or be analyzed in the 
laboratory to see what it was composed of, whether it was all Spirit 
and no matter, just as the atheistic scientist says man is all matter 
and has no soul, or whether God knows of two substances. Spirit and 
matter, just as man is not all matter and has a soul. But here is a 
"Science" which undertakes to tell us that matter is unreal, non-ex- 
istent for the simple reason because it "reveals nothing in Spirit out 
of which to create matter," limiting Ged's power to that of man who 
cannot produce something where there is nothing to produce it from. 

I know that atheistic scientists claim that matter is eternal 



334 

because it is an axiom of their science that from nothing, nothing 
comes, and because matter cannot be annihilated. But does that 
make matter uncreated and eternal because finite power — man— <5an- 
not annihilate it? 

Supposing man could annihilate matter, why, then, in time he 
could annihilate the universe, and long before it were annihilated 
there would be chaos, from the fact that the annihilation of matter 
would cause vacuums, and these vacuums would cause objects to rush 
into them and cause a chaos and collapse of the structure of the 
universe, just as the removal of stones or bricks anywhere and every- 
where in a material structure or building of man, would cause it to 
collapse and tear everything to pieces that was in its path. Is that 
not so? 

If some of these atheistic scientists, who claim that matter is in- 
destructible, therefore, uncreated by God, and eternal, had not, prob- 
ably, befogged their brains with liquor and tobacco they might have 
perceived why man cannot annihilate matter, and would then see 
that there is a power greater than man that governs the universe, and 
Who can create or annihilate matter if He chooses to do so. # 

Now it may be excusable in an atheist to deny God's j^ower to 
create matter by Divine fiat only, but what is to be thought of one 
professing to be a Christian, limiting God's power to create matter, 
because her "Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create 
matter"? 

To come right down to the point of the matter, Mrs. Eddy's writ- 
ings are pantheistical. 

"In one sense God is identical with nature; but this nature is 
spiritual and not expressed in matter" (109:13). 

Is that not pantheism to say "God is identical with nature?" Is 
the law-maker of a land identical with his law? Am I not above this 
book? If so, is God then "identical with nature?" If, then, God is 
above nature is He then "identical with nature?" a. f. y. 

"The Science of Christianity is strictly monotheism; — it has ONE 
GOD. And this divine Infinite Principle, noumena and phenomena, 
[Is this not Pantheism?] is demonstrably the self -existent Life, 
Truth, Love, Substance, Spirit, Mind, which includes all that the term 
implies, and is all that is real and eternal. [Therefore nothing is real 
but God, He is both 'noumena' — cause — 'and phenomena' — effect.] 
Christian Science is irrevocable * * * It is divinely true, and 



335 

every hour in time and in eternity will witness more steadfastly to its 
practical truth. And Science is not pantheism, but Christian Sci- 
ence" (142:18). 

If, then, this "divine Infinite Principle, noumena and phenom- 
ena, * * * is all that is real," does that not make this true: 

"God is all, there is nothing for Him to enter but Himself" 
(59:146-152), and if it makes that true, is that not pantheism? If 
God is "noumena and phenomena" is that not the same as noumena 
— cause — which means changing — making phenomena — effect — of 
entering? And if, then, God enters Himself because He is all, and 
there is nothing else for Him to enter, [Which would be like a sock 
turning — noumena — cause — itself outside in — phenomena — efPect], is 
not then everything noumena and phenomena, — cause and effect — 
God? And is not that pantheism? a. f. y. 

"If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything unlike 
Himself; because if He is omnipotent, there can be nothing outside 
of Himself" (140:4). 

If God is All, and "can have no consciousness of anything unlike 
Himself," then of course everything is God to God. Is that not so? 
Man is certainly unlike God, hence He can have no consciousness of 
us, and if He has no consciousness of us — because we are unlike Him 
— then it must be Himself whom He is "above * * * and through 
* * * and in" (Eph. 4:6), for He certainly would not care to be 
above, through, and in that of which He has no consciousness, would 
He? Is that not, then, pantheism? 

If the "Soul, or Mind, of man is God" (109:198), how, then, can 
He be above, through, and in any one but Himself? And does not 
that agree with "there is nothing for Him to enter but Himself?" 
And if it does, is that pantheism or not? a. f. y. If "God is the sum- 
total of the universe" (124:106), does that not make everything God? 
And if everything is God, "noumena and phenomena," cause and 
effect, is that not pantheism? 

The teachings of C. S. in regard to God being All — "the sum 
total of the universe" — is only a thinly disguised teaching of Theoso- 
phy, for this is the teaching of Theosophy : 

"All that exists is but varied differentiation of the one all-pervading 
Spiritual Essence," and "each one of us is a part of the Great Whole" 
(143:45). [Just like the cogs in a large wheel are "a part of the Great 
Whole," hence we are God, and that bears out the statement of Mrs. 



336 

Eddy, that a personal man is a "theological mythoplasm" (59-146- 
152), and if man is not personal, an individual with a mind, intellect, 
and free will, why, then, I suppose, it makes little or no diflference 
whether he is a "mythoplasm" or not.] 

Here is one reason why Mrs. Eddy denies the reality of matter: 

"When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, — that is, 
when we do so in our theories, for of course we can not really endow 
matter with what it does not and can not possess, — we disown the 
Almighty; for such theories lead to one of two things. They either 
[Atheists do, yes] pre-suppose the self-evolution and self-government 
of matter; or else they assume that matter is the i^roduct of Spirit. 
To seize the first horn of this dilemma, and consider matter a power 
in and of itself, is to leave [As the Atheists do] the Creator out of 
His own universe; while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma, and 
regard God as the Creator of Matter, is not only to make Him re- 
sponsible for all disasters, physical and moral, [which would be the 
case if man had no free-will, but not otherwise] but to announce Him 
as their source, and so make Him guilty of maintaining perpetual 
misrule, in the form and under the name of natural law" (109:12, 13). 

Let us see whether it be true or not if we "regard God as the 
Creator of matter, is not only to make Him responsible for all disas- 
ters, physical and moral, but to announce Him as their source." Let 
us take, for instance, matter in the form of kerosene or coal oil 
When used for heating or lighting it is good, is it not? But suppos- 
ing a person, who has been warned time and again not to pour coal 
oil out of a can into a stove to hurry up a slow fire, or pour it on 
kindling underneath of which are smouldering coals of fire, hidden by 
ashes, pours oil on anyway and the oil becomes ignited and as quick 
as a flash of lightning the flame follows the pouring stream to the can 
causes the can to explode, envelops the i^erson in flames, sets the house 
on fire, is burnt to crisp and ashes, is God responsible for that disas- 
ter? The person had a frae-will and could choose to use the oil or 
not, just as he chose to do; is God then responsible or the source of 
that disaster? 

Was God responsible for the disaster caused by a man using ker- 
osene to kindle a fire, causing an explosion that resulted in the death 
of six persons and the burning of the house to the ground, the item 
speaking of it appearing in the daily papers of Aug. 19, 1902? Did 
not God endow man with free-will and power to choose? If He did> 



337 

and matter is passive and man is active, and man can use matter as be 
chooses to, is Grod then responsible and the source of "all disasters," 
because man would not heed warnings with the result that a disaster 
befell him? 

Let us take another illustration. Supposing man takes matter in 
the form of fire. When he uses it for heating or cooking it is a good 
thing, is it not? But supposing he uses fire to light a cigar or cigar- 
ette, and, through carelessness, drops the burning match on a pair of 
lace curtains, the curtains are set on fire thereby, the fire spreads, 
burns down a hotel, and many lives of those in .the hotel are lost, is 
God responsible, or the source of this man's carelessness, which re- 
sulted so disastrously ? 

Let us take another illustration. Supposing a man takes matter in 
the form of fire and water and iron. He uses them and makes an en- 
gine and steam out of them, and the engine drives a lot of machinery 
that turns out flour, lumber, clothing, etc., which is a good thing, is it 
not? But supposing the man neglects to have sufiicient water in the 
boiler all the time, or uses the burnt out boiler long after the time that 
it should have been thrown on the pile of scrap iron, it explodes, de- 
molishes buildings, wounds, maims, and kills different persons in the 
vicinity of the explosion, is God responsible for such disasters? 

God made matter passive, endowed it with certain powers that are 
fixed by unchangeable laws, made man active, with a free-will and 
power to do as he chooses to, and He is therefore no more responsible 
or the source of disaster than is the legislator responsible or the 
source of a man's punishment which he suffers as a consequence for 
violating the law of which the legislator is the author. Is that plain 
to you? If it is, then it may be seen that God is not "responsible for 
all the disasters," or is "their source," even though He created matter, 
made it passive — for it will not act unless man acts on it — and endowed 
it with certain inherent powers that act according to immutable laws. 

Matter being created thus, and man being endowed with free-will 
and power of choice, is himself as responsible and the source of the 
disaster that he causes, as is the criminal responsible and the source 
of the punishment that befalls him for choosing to violate the law 
that brought on the punishment. Is that not so? If it is — and it is 
so — is not the teachings of C. S. on the subject of the unreality and 
non-existence of matter, then, only so much "verbiage" for those to 
admire, with whom the "intellect is a dethroned king?" a. f. y. 

If matter is a "chimera," and does not exist, because "God never 



338 

created" (109:230) it, — and as God is the only cause and Creator 
matter cannot exist if He did not create it, — then what is it that Chris- 
tian Scientists eat when they eat three times a day, as other "theolog- 
ical mythoplasm" do? Do they "feed upon" (49:217) God, like the 
Catholics do, who eat God in Communion and wash Him down into the 
stomach with a tablespoon full of water, should they communicate 
when lying in bed? 

If "everything is mind" [God] (109:166), — which of course must 
betrue if there is "nothing for Him to enter but Himself" if He gets into 
the notion of wanting to enter something — then when a Christian 
Scientist eats it is only God eating God, entering Himself, is it not? 
Well, there is just as much "psychology of the heart" (58:188, Nov. 22, 
1900) in that as in God entering Himself because "there is nothing 
for him to enter but Himself," or as Christ holding "His own real, liv- 
ing body" (13:67) in His hands at the Last Supper. 

It seems that C. S. and Catholicism would make a good team when 
it comes to teaching absurdities, "psychology of the heart," and "Faith," 
which I suppose means about the same thing, with this difference in 
favor of Catholicism, that one is not required by Catholicism to out- 
rage the senses by believeing it is "fair weather, in the midst of murky 
clouds and drenching rain," simply because "the barometer, that little 
prophet of storm and sunshine, — denying the testimony of the senses,'' 
(109:16) [One of which are the same eyes whose testimony is not 
denied when looking at the barometer] points to fair weather, a thing 
Christian Scientists would have to believe if they want to be consist- 
ent with the teachings of their text book. Is that not so? 

But do Christian Scientists believe really that mind is all and that 
there is no^matter? If everything was Spirit, Mind — God — just as the 
fish-globe filled with water. would have no fish in it, how then could 
God manifest His power and intelligence ? If there were no building 
material how could the architect make his idea — the plan of a building 
in his mind — manifest to others? Did you ever contemplate the archi- 
tectural skill displayed in a fine, large, magnificent building? And did 
it ever occur to you that if there had been no matter to work on, to 
outline in material from the architect's idea he had in mind, that that 
building could not have been there for you to "breathe aloud your 
rapture" by beholding it? 

If then matter was needed with which the architect could mani- 
fest his idea to others, cannot God, then, in like manner use matter 



339 

■with which to manifest to us His idea, power, and intelligence? But 
says C. S.: 

"God is omnipresent, * * * He is all and He is everywhere, 
what and where is matter" (109:119), then? 

God is of such substance that He can be "above all, and through 
all, and in us all" (Eph. 4:6), without displacing Himself any more 
than the substance of the wire displaces the substance of the elec- 
tricity that passes through it. And if God wanted to He could have 
existed without lesser substances — which He created to be witnesses 
to us of His idea, power and intelligence — ^just as the electricity can 
exist without the wire, nor does God need to displace anything by be- 
ing "above all, and through all, and in us all," any more so than does 
electricity displace the substance of the wire through which it passes. 
It may be seen then that God can be omnipresent and everywhere 
and yet matter also exist. 

When the Scripture says that "God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 
15:28), does that mean that God is all and that there is nothing else? 
Yet that is the interpretation C. S. places on it and it is just as far 
from being the truth of its real meaning as is the statement that it is 
fair weather in the "midst of murky clouds and drenching rain," sim- 
* ply because a New England barometer points to fair weather then. 
The real meaning of "that God may be all in all" — which implies that 
it is to be a future event, hence it does not mean that nota God is all 
— according to the Scripture, is that God is to be all to all, just like a 
fellow's girl is all to him — especially if he is so far gone as to be al- 
ways scribbling hername on every stray piece of paper he gets a hold 
of; or when he takes "his world in his arms" (53: July 24, 1901) 
when she trembles towards him, as the Catholic News has it — and 
does not mean that the substance of God is to enter into the compo- 
sition of all and make them God, any more so than the substance of a 
fellow's girl enters his structural composition and makes him girl. It 
is in the inind, thought, that God is to be all to all, just as the girl is 
all in the mind, thought, of the fellow of my illustration. And, ac- 
cording to the Scripture, Christ is to continue His mission of subject- 
ing until all things have been subjected unto Him, when He is Him- 
self to become subject also unto Him, that "God may be all in all." 

That is another text that is against the doctrine of eternal dam- 
nation for any, and favors Universalism, Dowieism and a few other 
minor sects. Well, that or annihilation, for those so utterly depraved 



340 

as to be beyond all hope of a final redemption, is certainly a view of 
God that is more noble and merciful than the blasphemous doctrine 
of eternal, torments, taught by the Catholic church and the One In- 
fallible Bible Church. 

We will now see what C. S. teaches about the unreality of matter, 
which means everything that is not Grod. "Mortal body and material 
man are delusions" (109:198). Hence if one wants to belong to the 
C. S. Church one must "dress well" a delusion. "Nothing is more 
monstrous than to imagine Spirit producing matter or a physical 
body" (137:458, Oct. 1889). If, then. Spirit [God] did not create or 
produce the physical body then what did produce it? It will not do 
to say that mortal mind did for then the question arises, Who or what 
produced the mortal mind? If it is said that belief or error did, then 
the question arises, Who or what produced the belief or error, if "God, 
Spirit, is the only cause" (109:182)? The statement, then, that 
"nothing is more monstrous than to imagine Spirit ijroducing matter 
or a physical body" is only so much "verbiage" for those to admire 
with whom the "intellect is a dethroned king," is it not? a. f. y. 

To say that "Spirit cannot beget anything but spirit; it cannot 
beget flesh and blood" (137:459, Oct. 1889), limits God's power just 
as much so as the atheists do, who say, from nothing^ nothing comes^ 
hence God did not create matter, and matter is therefore eternal and 
uncreated, does it not? C. S. and Atheism would make a good team 
to pull together when it comes to limiting God's power, would they 
not? a. f. y. 

"Flesh, an error of physical belief, ♦ * * an illusion" 
(109:577). "Jesus was the Virgin's son. In the flesh [illusion] he 
was appointed to speak God's word to human flesh, [illusion speaking 
to illusion, which is the same as nothing speaking to nothing] and 
appear to mortals ["Mortals are man's counterfeits." (109:471)] in 
such a form of humanity as they could understand as well as perceive" 
(109:228). 

. Here, according to S. and H., in which "there are no contradictory 
statements" (109:291), God takes cognizance of counterfeits, and ap- 
points Jesus to speak to them. Here is, indeed, a medley! Who made 
this counterfeit, if God is the only "cause and effect," and "man is not 
shall l)e, perfect and immortal" (109:426), and "man is as perfect now, 
and henceforth, and forever, as when the stars first sang together" 
(124:187), and "man is incapable of sin" and "cannot depart from 



341 

holiness" (109I471), and "God or Grood, could never make men capable of 
sin" 109:476)? Who made the counterfeit, then, of which God knows 
nothing yet appoints Jesus to speak to it? 

Verily, indeed, it seems, that the "intellect is a dethroned king'' 
with those who can believe in C. S. as a whole. Flesh is "an illusion," 
yet Christ "sufPered in the flesh" (140:70). 

Is it not strange that Jesus of Nazareth, who "was the most scien- 
tific man that ever trod the globe" (109:209), did not know as much 
'.'Science" as Christian Scientists do, and have "demonstrated" over 
the belief of suffering in the flesh — illusion, as Christian Scientists 
"demonstrate" over it? 

"This spirit of God is made manifest in the flesh, healing and 
saving men" (144:15). "St. John 6:63. If God ever created the flesh 
would not the Master here be declaring that the work of his Heavenly 
Father 'profiteth nothing"' (145:22)? [In the sense in which the 
Catholic Church interprets it, yes: but not in the way Jesus meant it.] 

Here we have "spirit of God" healing that which God knows 
nothing about, for if flesh was not created by God, and God is the 
only Creator, He certainly cannot know of anything that does not exist, 
yet he heals this nothing. 

"Does he who believes in sickness, know or declare that there is 
no sickness, and thus heal it? Christian Scientists do this, and by 
reason thereof its divine principle, demonstrated, heals the most invet- 
erate diseases" (137:76, May 1899). That is like saying, there is 
nothing, yet C. S. heals the "most inveterate" nothing. Well, make 
your own comment on the foregoing, which Christian Scientists can 
answer "scientifically, understandingly, and demonstratably" (137:306 
Sept. 1899), should you want information about C. S. Truths. 

"He [Our Master] overcame the world, the flesh, [illusion] and 
all error, thus proving their nothingness"' (109:344). 

Because a bird flies up from the ground into the air does that 
prove the "nothingness" of gravitation? When a man uses a derrick 
and an engine in hoisting, into upper stories of a building he is build- 
ing, stone and iron, does he thereby prove the "nothingness" of gravi- 
tation? The very fact that he uses the derrick and the engine is 
an acknowledgement on his part that gravitation is not nothingness 
but a reality, and the reason he overcame this reality was by using a 
higher law to overcome a lower law. Is that not so? Well then, when 
Jesus "overcame the world, the flesh, and all error" it was not because 



342 

of their "nothingness," but because He had the power in Him, — which 
we all have, if we care to exercise it, — by which he overcame a lower 
inclination law by a higher one. Is that not so? 

To me it seems it is offering Jesus Christ a blasphemous insult 
to say that He overcame things simply because of their "nothing- 
ness." To me it seems that it would redound more to the honor and 
power of Jesus to say that He overcame things real, than to say He 
overcame them because they were "nothingness" — nothing. Any one 
can overcome nothing, but it is in overcoming realities that one's 
power and virtue are shown. Is not that so? a. f. y. 

"Emerge gently from matter into Spirit" (109:481). How can 
one "emerge gently" from that which does not exist? There is an 
admission here, then, is there not, that Mrs. Eddy believes in the ex- 
istence of matter, for how could she otherwise tell us to "emerge 
gently" from a thing which does not exist, if she did not believe it 
existed? But then contradictions are no uncommon things in the 
teachings of C. S. 

"The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with 
Life" (109:45). "Lungs never sustained existence, and can never 
destroy God, [I did not know before this that Grod had lungs which 
mortals were attempting to heal] who is our Life" (109:423). 
"If you have sound and capacious lungs, and want them to remain so, 
be always ready with the mental protest [Auto-suggestion] against 
the opposite belief" (109:423). 

Here we are told that lungs have nothing to do with life, never 
sustained existence, yet we are told what to do if we want sound and 
capacious lungs to remain so. If lungs have nothing to do with life, 
never sustained existence, then what difference does it make whether 
or not one has "sound and capacious lungs?" Why, then, treat one 
for consumption and when the patient dies send in a bill to the estate 
for nearly a hundred dollars for "demonstrations?" Yet that is what 
C. S. healers have done. 

Why tell one lungs have nothing to do with life, then try to heal 
one of consumption, and charge for it when the patient passes on? Is 
that Love [Yes, for money] to charge where the patient passes on 
while in the hands of C. S. healers? It seems to me that if the "heart 
and Soul of Christian Science is Love" (109:7) they would practice 
some of it when they fail to do any one any good. Yet C. S. healers 
have sent bills to estates for treating one for consumption, where the 



343 

patient passed on, despite the fact that they believed — or pretended to 
— that lungs have nothing to do with life. 

If C. S. healers want to be consistent with the teachings of C. S. 
why do they not tell a patient who has consumption, and comes to 
them for treatment, that lungs have nothing to do with life, so just go 
your way and keep your money ? If they did that then of course they 
would not acquire "comfortable fortunes." 

"In the early history of Christian Science, among my thousands 
of students few were wealthy. Now, Christian Scientists are not 
indigent; and their comfortable fortunes are acquired by healing 
mankind morally, physically, spiritually" (124: vii.). [Like those 
who die of consumption are healed]. 

What do Christian Scientists want with money anyway? Even 
if they should dress well their "deceitful senses" would tell them, 
because C. S. "reverses the testimony of the physical senses" (109:14), 
that they were either in rags or were naked like the Yogi of India, 
who go stark naked because they say, 'We have no sin of the flesh to 
be conscious of, and therefore we are not ashamed of our nakedness" 
(67:346, Vol. 2). And as "heat and cold are products of" mortal 
mind (109:373), anyway, why, then, Christian Scientists would not 
need clothing as a protection against the weather, they might easily 
imitate the Yogi, because there really is no mortal mind" (109:303), 
and where no mortal mind no heat and cold, and as flesh is "an illu- 
sion" there can be no sin of the flesh, and where no sin why be 
ashamed any more than the Yogi to go stark naked or go dressed as 
the Grold Dust Twins are? 

If they then did not want to be, when in either of those condi- 
tions, amongst "theological mythoplasm" — such as non-Christian 
Scientists must be in the eyes of consistent Christian Scientists — 
why, I suppose they could find room for themselves at the North 
Pole, and solve the North Pole problem, for cold does not exist, being 
only a "human belief" (109:77), anyway, which can be demonstrated 
over by declaring there is no cold, just as declaring there is "no sick- 
ness or disease," heals the "most inveterate diseases," so likewise by 
declaring there is no cold would destroy the "most inveterate" cold. 
And as "food neither strengthens nor weakens the body" (107:118), 
and a "cup of coffee or tea is not the equal of Truth * * * for 
the support of bodily endurance" (109:245), why, then, if the regions 
around the North Pole will not produce food on account of the belief 



344 

— to "mortal sense" — of its being too cold for vegetation, they could 
feed upon Truth. And as children are "counterfeits of creation" 
(109:573), they would have perfect freedom there to practice their 
belief that "generation rests on no sexual basis" (109:274), by making 
ante-nuptial agreements for two to live under the same roof as 
brother and sister, and would then escape the belief of the "theo- 
logical mythoplasm" that Christian Scientists practice abortion, or 
that the teachings of C. S. are so highly spiritual as to make them 
barren because they have no "counterfeits of creation." 

Now, this is a fact that Christian Scientists have entered into such 
an agreement, that marriage between them is to be one where they 
are to live under the same roof as brother and sister. I know of a 
case where a couple have entered into an agreement to live thus, and 
they are a handsome looking young couple, too. When the mother of 
the bride was asked, why then did her daughter marry, she said, "So 
that she would be provided for." One would think that where Chris- 
tian Scientists had become so spiritualized as to have "learned that 
generation rests on no sexual basis" (109:274), that they would also 
have the understanding sufficient enough to make it no longer to them 
"foolish to stop eating" (109:387), and would stop eating, and would, 
therefore, not need to be provided for by any one. Is that not so? 

That this species of fanaticism is practiced already in other 
places, besides in those in which I know it is practiced, may be seen 
from the following: 

"I personally know of more than one marriage of Christian Scient- 
ists deliberately entered upon with the written agreement and under- 
standing that in substance it should be merely the relation of brother 
and sister" (143:58, 59). 

We may talk about the fanaticism of the virginity of the Saints 
in the so-called "Dark Ages," but did it equal this fanaticism of C. S. 
in this co-called enlightened and civilized age? 

Supposing that, in time, such a practice became general among 
Christian Scientists, and the people did not know of such agreements 
between C. S. couples, would the public not have a right to believe 
that Christian Scientists practiced abortion, or that the teachings of 
C. S. are so spiritualizing in their eflPects as to cause barrenness, be- 
cause Christian Scientists would be having no children then? 

In the tenets of C. S. it says: 

"1. As adherents of Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide 
to eternal life" (109:493). 

Is that taking the Scriptures as a guide by entering marriage by 



345 

merely making it a relation as brother and sister, under the same roof, 
when it says in Gen. 1:28, "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth"? 
Of course, C. S. claims to interpret the Scriptures spiritually, and that 
therefore the Scriptural injunction is not to be taken literally to mean 
the increase and multiplication of "theological mythoplasm," but that 
it means "ideas." 

Well and good then, if the Scriptures are not to be interpreted 
literally in the one instance then by what rule of logic can it be inter- 
preted literally in another? Does not C. S. take literally Matt. 10:8. 
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils," and 
Mark 16:17, 18, "And these signs shall follow them that believe," etc., 
and "they shall lay their hands [Which they do no longer practice 
since they discovered that, according to the law of suggestion, one can 
be mesmerized mentally into believing that "You are well and you 
know it" (124:220.) without bodily contact, as well as with such contact] 
upon the sick, and they shall recover," when they attempt to heal 
bodily ailments? 

But says C. S.. we begin by making the inside of the platter clean 
first — that is, heal one of such thoughts that manifest themselves on 
the body in the form of disease, which thoughts are supposed to be 
carnal, sinful. But is it true that that is the way C. S. heals the body, 
by first healing the soul of the sickness of sin? My experience with 
C. S. has just been the opposite from that. 

Of the twelve diflferent C. S. healers that I have had not one 
asked mc if I had or knew of any unrepented sin, but I was asked, 
just before they began treatment, how my bowels and kidneys 
worked, and that, too, by female healers, whom one would have 
thought that they would be too prudish to ask a man such questions. 
Is that the way to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse the lepers 
in sin, by beginning with wanting to know how the bowels and kid- 
neys work? I know of cases where unbelievers — in fact Mrs. Eddy 
says: "I have healed infidels, [Not of moral disease, but of bodily 
disease], whose only objection to this method was, that I as a Chris- 
tian Scientist, believed in the Holy Spirit, while the patients did not" 
(109:304, 305) — [Which is proof positive that C. S. healing is not 
according to Christ, but according to mental suggestion] claimed 
they were healed in C. S. When asked if they would, now that they 
were healed in C. S., investigate C. S. to learn to understand what it 
is, so that in case they should become sick again they could heal 



846 

themselves, said, "Haven't the time to do that, besides it is cheaper 
to have the healing hired done." Does that read like interpreting 
Matt. 10:8, and Mark 16:17, 18, and that it means the healing of the 
moral disease, when C. S. heals bodily diseases and leaves unbelievers 
in such a state of mind? 

If then C. S. takes Matt. 10:8, and Mark 16:17, 18 to mean liter- 
ally what it says, that is, to heal the bodily sick and diseased, why 
then should it not take Gen. 1:28, to mean literally what it says, that 
is, male and female, together in marriage, multiply yourselves by 
having offspring, and then do so, instead of marrying and living under 
the same roof as brother and sister? 

If Gen. 1 :28 means literally what it says — and no one questions 
that it does — then when C. S. says, "From human belief comes the 
reproduction of species" (109:83), [Which, no doubt, also means ani- 
mal species, which, as Science proves, existed ages on this earth be- 
fore there were any "theological mythoplasm" on earth to create the 
"human belief" of reproduction in the animal species] it is a libel on 
the design of God, and has no more truth in it than there is in the 
statement that it is fair weather in the midst of "murky clouds and 
drenching rain" simply because a barometer points to fair weather. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

• That Christian Scientists do not believe in the teachings, as a 
whole, of their text book is patent to the least observer. One time a 
lot of Christian Scientists made a pilgrimage to see the "Mother," as 
they called her. On their return, I attended an experience meeting 
in which those, who had been on the excursion to see the "Mother," 
were quite effusive in relating their observances and experiences they 
noted when in the presence of the "Mother." Well, there was among 
them a married man, between the ages of 35 and 45, and he testified 
in the meeting that the "Mother" appeared to him so "lovely and 
beautiful" that he felt like putting his arm around her. Whether he 
reversed "the evidence before the material senses" (109:457) I do not 
know, for I have never seen the "Mother" so as to pronounce my 
judgment on her beauty, to know whether or not it is so tempting as to 
make a married man feel like putting his arm around her, an act 
which he, probably, would have attempted had he been alone with 
her, but I was left to infer that he did not reverse the evidence before 
the material senses. 

Does that not prove that Christian Scientists do not believe in 



347 

their text book altogether? Who would want to hug [There is this 
difference between a "hug" and an "embrace": in the former it is 
where one pats just one arm around a person, while in the latter, one 
puts both arms around a person, like when she trembles toward him, 
and he takes "his world in his arms," or like when the arms are used 
as in dancing the "highly indecent, obscene, impure" round dances, 
for which the bishop has been so good as to give a dispensation, be- 
cause the money derived from them goes into the treasury of the 
Church. You know now the difference between a "hug" and an 
"embrace," do you not?] an "illusion" or a "theological mythoplasm," 
and afterwards tell in public about it? 

Of course it might have been that the Christian Scientists, pres- 
ent at that meeting, reversed the testimony before the material sense 
of hearing, and that to them it meant the same as though he had said 
that the "Mother" had appeared so ugly and homely to him that he 
could not have been hired, at any price, to put his arm around her. 

That is what one gets for having "deceitful senses;" one cannot 
tell what a Christian Scientist means when saying or telling some- 
thing. 

I do not see where the following comes in: 

"Christian Science enhances their [Business men] physical and 
mental powers" (109:21), when after over eight months in C. S. my 
physical powers were so enhanced that I could not walk three blocks 
to a car, while before I was treated by C. S. I could walk seventeen 
blocks, without cane or crutch. I know now, and have for some time 
known it, why, instead of having my physical powers enhanced, they 
were lessened. It was because, before I had anything to do with C. 
S., I took a rest of an hour or so every day after dinner. I had an old 
sofa, on the second floor of the store, on which I took those rests after 
dinner, doing so for nearly two years before trying C. S. After I had 
C. S. I had to give up that practice, because the healers said that that 
was showing lack of faith in God, for it was as much as believing 
that God was not our only strength, but that matter would thereby be 
regarded as giving strength also. As I did not want to do anything 
that might interfere with the success of the healers, I was so mesmer- 
ized under their influence that I actually threw away my common 
sense, and followed to the letter that which the healers told me to do. 
Even after I began to get worse and, began to use a cane in walking to 
the healer's office, I would be told that I was leaning on matter, and 



348 

that I should overcome the belief that matter can in any way help me 
and that I must look to God only for strength. 

In not taking my accustomed rest after dinner my system thereby 
became weakened so that the strain on it was too great for it to endure 
and it gave way, — broke down. It was like to a casting that has had 
a blow, which gave it a flaw that weakened it, but which could do ser- 
vice to a certain extent, beyond which it would give way when the 
strain became too great. That was the case with me. My spine had 
been injured in that street car mishap, already mentioned, and I could 
endure just so much strain. Anything beyond that would cause me 
to break down, which I did, after C S. so mesmerized me that I dis- 
regarded the ordinary precautions against overstraining my system, 
and overstrained myself by weakening my system through the discon- 
tinuance of my after dinner rests. That, then, is the reason for my 
getting worse in C. S. instead of having my physical powers "en- 
hanced." 

But now it may be asked, why I did not give up 0. S. when I first 
noticed that I got w'orse under C. S. treatment? It was because I was 
"bumfoozled" by this: 

"If the reader of this book observes a great stir [Increased pain, 
for instance] throughout the whole system, and certain moral [Like 
cursing and swearing the worst "blue streak"' I ever did in my life, 
after I had been in C S. a number of months and got physically so 
miich worse as to exhaust my patience] and physical symptoms seem 
aggravated, -these indications are favorable" (109:419), or as Christ- 
ology now has it: "At times the patients will come to the healer and 
complain that the treatments are not doing them any good, but are 
making them worse. I have had them say, 'Stop, or I believe it will 
kill me.' They w'ould tell me that I must stop it. Then advise your 
patient the cause of this evil. Assure him that it is the last wiggle of 
the snake's tail, the last dying consciousness of evil" (147:68, 69). So 
when I would get worse, and better, and worse, I was assured that, if 
I kept at it long enough, I would eventually come out all right, be- 
cause the "aggravated symptoms" were "indications" that are favora- 
ble, and was the "last wiggle of the snake's tail." Well, that snake's 
tail has been wiggling over five years now, and as to its power of 
endurance it bids fair to equal that of the orthodox devil who has had 
his head crushed by the Blessed Virgin, and by "her seed," and who 
still goes about like a "roaring lion" seeking whom he may devour. 



349 

May the Lord deliver others from the "last wiggle of the snake's tail," 
if it means to them what it has meant to me. 

"Electricity is not a vital fluid, but the least material form of 
illusive consciousnes, * * * Electricity is some of the nonsense 
of error, [Yet they are willing to use it to light their churches with 
it] which ever counterfeits the true essence of eternal Truth" (109: 
189). "Knowing the claim of animal magnetism, that there is life, 
substance, and intelligence in matter, [Atheists only claim that] elec- 
tricity, animal nature, and organic life, who will deny that these are 
the errors [Of which electricity is one] which Truth must and will 
annihilate" (109:447)? 

They must be something then, realities, for it would be a blas- 
phemous mockery to say that Truth — God — "will annihilate" nothing, 
would it not? If electricity, which propels our street cars, lights our 
buildings, and heats some of them, is a "nonsense of error" which 
"Truth [God] must and will annihilate" whence is it then, if God is 
the only Creator, the only "cause and effect?" 

It does seem, does it not, that when a former Christian Scientist 
said that Christian Scientists "are a self -deceived, self -hypnotized, self- 
mesmerized people, and are to be pitied from one's heart" (138:9), 
that he was about right in his opinion of them, if they believe what 
their text book teaches about electricity? 

"Our dietetic theories first admit that food sustains the life of 
man, and then discuss the. certainty that food can kill him" (109:388). 

Which is true because food is passive and man is active, and if 
man overloads his stomach, like a glutton, it will destroy him just like 
too great a weight on a bridge destroys it. Water is necessary for 
man, and does him good in quenching his thirst, but if he falls into a 
pond and gets too much water in him he will drown, be killed. Is 
that not so? Well, then, our dietetic theories about food sustaining 
life, and also destroying one, is true, is it not? It depends on how we 
use a thing which shows us when it is good or when evil. 

"The condition of the stomach, bowels, food, clothing, etc., is of 
no serious import to your child" (59:111). Is that true according to 
this? "The value of an aggressive health department to a city is 
brought out in Dr. Winslow's article on 'The War Against Disease' in 
the January Atlantic Monthly. His most interesting illustration is 
drawn from Buffalo, whose health commissioner undertook to reduce 
the rate of infant mortality by two specific measures — by a careful 



350 

supervision of the milk supply and by the distribution of printed in- 
structions on the care of infants to every family in which a birth was 
reported. Within eight years the death rate among children under 
five years of age in Buffalo had diminished one-half" (57: Jan. 24, 
1903). 

Will any one of sane mind dare say after reading that, that the 
"condition of the food, etc., is of no serious import to your child," 
when in eight years of food and other regulations, the death rate 
among children, under five years of age, in a large city, diminished 
one-half? 

I believe I have said enough, so far, no doubt, about what is 
termed matter, in C. S., to convince anyone, whose intellect is not a 
dethroned king, that the position of C. S. on it is untenable, contra- 
dictory, fanatical, blasphemous, and absurd, and will therefore next 
consider the subjects of evil and disease. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



EVIL AND DISEASE. 

In this chapter we will see whether or not evil, — which also means 
sin, — and disease, — meaning also sickness, —are realities. In order to 
prove whether they are real or not we must first assume that the fol- 
lowing two propositions are true. The first is, that God governs the 
universe by law, with penalties attached for its violations. The second 
is, that man is endowed, by the Creator, with a reason, free will, and 
power to choose to obey or to violate law. If those propositions are 
true, and no person of sane mind will question that they are true, 
then sin and sickness are just as real as is the incarceration in prison 
real to a person there, who has violated a law of the commonwealth 
which makes imprisonment a punishment for the violation of its law, 
and no more makes God the author of sin and sickness than is the 
commonwealth the author of a crime committed by a person for which 
that person is punished by the commonwealth. 

Supposing a state makes horse stealing a penitentiary ofiPense and 
imprisons for, we will say, five years the horse thief, is that, then, not 
a real evil, although the state did not cause the thief to steal the horse? 
And when the thief is imprisoned is the punishment not a reality? 
Or supposing a state makes homicide a capital offense and one com- 
mits murder and is punished on the gallows is that not a reality? Is 
the state the cause of that person committing the murder which 
brought punishment on the gallows, as a consequence to that person? 
If not, then, cannot evil, sin, exist without God being the Creator of 
it? And because God did not create it is it therefore the less a reality 
because one with a free will chooses to violate God's law? 

What is sin but the violation of God's law, — commandments? 
When God commands one not to steal and one steals is that no sin, 
and only a mortal invention" (140:75)? And is God the cause of that 
sin when one has a free will and power to choose to steal or not to 
steal? And when one is punished for stealing did God send, will, or 
decree arbitrarily that that person should steal so that he may be pun- 
ished? If, then, God did not cause one to steal, because one had a 



352 

free will and could choose to steal or not, and one steals, is that viola- 
tion of God's law, commandment, not a sin that is real'? 

We will now look at some of the arguments and teachings of C. 
S. on the subject of sin. 

"We should hesitate [And we do] to say Jehovah sins or suffers; 
but if sin and suffering are realities of Being, [We are not talking 
about Grod sinning, but about man's sinning,] whence did they ema- 
nate? God made all that was made, and Mind signifies God, — infinity, 
notfinity" (109:125). 

They "emanate" in man's free will and power to choose to do 
right or wrong if he wants to. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

'There is no sin, for God's Kingdom is everywhere and supreme, 
and it follows that the human kingdom is nowhere, and must be U7i- 
real" (141:45). 

0. S. does not seem to know that man can be in God's Kingdom 
and have a free will and choose to do right or wrong, just as a man 
may be in a king's kingdom and choose to do right or wrong towards 
the king. But, then, what else can be expected where the "intellect 
is a dethroned king" (109:387)? 

"Sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life" (109:387). 

Certainly not, if "Soul, or Life" here means God, but if it means 
man, then they are, for free will is a quality of man that can choose 
to do right or wrong. If Mrs. Eddy here means by "Soul or Life," 
God, then why does she not say so and not leave one in doubt as to 
what she means by those words? If she means God then it would, 
indeed, be blasphemy to say that "sin and sickness" are qualities of 
God. 

"Sin is a lie from the beginning, — an illusion, nothing, and only 
an assumption that nothing is something" (144:20). 

No doubt the unbeliever, whose conscience has become seared, 
regards bank robbing, murdering, licentiousness, cursing and swear- 
ing no sin, an "illusion, nothing." All he makes a reality of is the 
fear that he may be captured. The other things do not bother him 
for he has made of sin "nothing," "an illusion, a lie," and he would 
just as soon rob a bank, murder his pursuers, and curse and swear as 
to eat a good, square meal. That part of C. S. would no doubt suit 
him first rate. 

The above is an extract from an Annual Message of Mrs. Eddy, 
which a Christian Scientist said was the "best that ever came from 



353 

her pen, and was so comprehensible and plain." Well, to judge from 
the price of it it ought to be the "best that ever came from her pen." 
It is a pamphlet with fifty pages of reading matter, of about two hun- 
dred words to a page, and costs fifty cents. 

If that Message was from Grod then it must not be true that S. 
and H. "contains the complete Science of Mind-healing" (109:40) 
and is the "Key to the Scriptures to unlock this 'mystery of Godli- 
ness' " (134:45). And if it was not from God then is it not making 
Mrs. Eddy a wiser being than God is, — who is supposed to have dic- 
tated S. and H., for it says that "no human pen or tongue taught me 
the Science contained in this book" (109:4), which then must mean 
that God taught her, — if it is said that it is the "best that ever came 
from her pen? ' 

"Those who believe in one God should rely upon Him as the only 
cause and motive power of all that really exists. [Then man has no 
free will, and if no free will then he is a machine, and like a machine, 
acts only as another power acts on it] . Can it, for a moment, be as- 
sumed that God is the cause of sin? [No more so than the legislator 
is the cause of a crime for which the criminal is being punished for 
violating a law of which the legislator is the author]. "Would it not 
be quite as unreasonable to maintain that sin has any substance or 
reality? From what first cause has sin derived its substance and real- 
ity" (58:179, Nov. 22, 1900)? 

Just listen to that, "from what first cause has sin derived its sub- 
stance and reality?" Was it not when God made a commandment, 
that a man with a free will and power to choose to obey or to violate, 
was commanded to observe it refused to do so? Was that not the 
first cause from which sin derived its "substance and reality?" 

When a state passes a law that quails are not to be killed during 
a certain period and a man goes hunting quails in defiance of the law, 
is not his violation of the law a reality, and did it not derive its first 
cause of being such, when the law was enacted, and he violated it the 
first time? Evil is no more a substance that can be bottled up and 
be labeled "evil," than good is a substance that can be bottled up and 
be labeled "good." 

If a man takes a charge of giant powder and blasts loose with it 
a lot of coal, and gives it to the needy poor, gratuitously, can the sub- 
stance of that good deed be bottled up and be labeled "good," any 
more so than could the substance of an evil deed be bottled up and be 



354 

labeled "evil," sin, which the same man with the same powder, could 
have comnaitted by blowing to smithereens the house and to atoms the 
man in the house against whom he had a grudge, had he choosed to 
do so? 

One time I had an argument with some Christian Scientists on 
the reality of evil, and used an illustration pretty much like the one 
above, when one of them said that the former deed of charity was real 
because it was good, but that the latter deed of evil was unreal, be- 
cause good is the only reality. Well, I argued no more with Christian 
Scientists after that, although I had not as yet read that the "intellect . 
is a dethroned king" in C. S., even though I had had the C. S. Sen- 
tinel, that contained that key which is required to believe in the 
teachings of C. S., for some time in my desk, under lock and key, so 
that my people would not get hold of it. 

In the early spring of 1901 I had made for me a standing desk 
with a place to it in which I could keep things under lock and key. 
After I had ordered the desk I told a Christian Scientist about it, and 
my object in getting it, which was principally to keep C. S. literature 
in, expecting that after a two years' discontinuance of reading it, — 
having given it up at one time, while bedridden, to please my people, 
— that I could understand it, not having been able to understand it 
before. [Well, you know now how I understand it]. The Christian 
Scientist then said to me : 

"See how Love [meaning Grod] finds a way for those to get the 
Truth who earnestly seek it." 

If she ever reads this she will probably change that now and say 
that it was "error" that found the way for me. 

At that time I was in earnest about it, and meant just what I told 
her, but lo! what a revelation there opened up to me when I read 
again the C. S. literature which I had smuggled into the desk, by car- 
rying the books first into the house inside my open shirt front. They 
say that "where there is a will there is a way," but I could not find it 
to the understanding of C. S., even though I found a way to get its 
literature into the house from which it had been barred by the orders 
of a priest. 

If, then, good or evil are not concrete substances, but are abstract 
things, can they not then exist, be realities, substances, without God 
being the cause from which sin has "derived its substance and 
reality?" 

"Was it Grod's man, created in the Divine likeness, [Yes, if man 



365 

has a free will and power to do what he chooses to], who sinned, or 
was it a man of dust, a mortal" (58:179, Nov. 22, 1900) ? 

If it was not the former who sinned, but the latter, the man of 
"dust, a mortal," then who made this mortal if God is the only cause 
and Creator? If C S. says it was belief, then who or what caused the 
belief? If it is then answered that it is "mortal mind," then I ask, 
who or what caused and created the "mortal mind?" If it is then 
said that "error" did, then who or what caused or created the error, if 
God is the only Cause and effect, "noumena and phenomena?" 

Does not logic then lead us to deduce from this that man has a 
free will and power to do right or wrong just as he chooses to do? 
And if so, then cannot "God's man, created in the Divine likeness," 
sin? 

Are we small wheels in a machine and cannot act unless acted 
upon by a large wheel? Yet that seems to be the position of C. S. 

"The water which turns the large wheel is a sufficient motive 
power for the smaller wheel connected therewith. God controls His 
universe now even as He did 'when the morning stars sang together' " 
(Ibid). 

Do you see now that, according to C. S., man is only as a machine? 
And if he is, why, of course, then he cannot sin, and. if he cannot sin 
then sin is, as C. S. teaches, "an illusion, nothing," for we certainly 
cannot condemn a man for doing that which he cannot help doing if 
he is a "smaller wheel" whose only "motive power" is a large wheel, — 
God, any more so than one would condemn a machine that turns out 
nails instead of Excelsior Farm Sausage, made of Swine's flesh, if the 
machine was made to turn out nails. Is that not so? 

"If we believe sin and disease to be stern realities — facts — why 
pray and labor to destroy them? Will you destroy facts" (137:9, 
April, 1900)? 

If a house is set on fire, the fire department arrives and puts out 
the fire, before very much damage is done, was there a "fact" destroyed 
or not? And if a fact — the fire which was burning the house — was 
destroyed by labor, then may not sin and disease — "facts" — likewise 
be destroyed by prayer and labor? a. f. y. 

"All that Mind is, or hath made, is good, [As, for instance, reason, 
free will, and power to do what man chooses to,] and He made all; 
hence there is no evil" (109:206). 

Therefore, my way of treating the subject of C. S. "is good." 



356 

"Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but 
is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense" (109:237). 

When a man purposely opens a switch for a passenger train to 
run into and be wrecked, and many are wounded and some killed, that 
is only an "illusion of material sense" to the families to which the 
wounded and dead belong and "has no reality." Great, indeed, is C. S. 

"Evil and all its forms are inverted Good" (140:66). Therefore, 
when bank robbers rob a bank, and the robbers kill their pursuers, it 
is good for the owners of the bank and for the families whose provid- 
ers, who did not live under the same roof as brother and sister and 
who produced "counterfeits of creation" (109:573) — children — were 
killed, (made to "pass on"), because what seemed evil to the material 
sense of "theological mythoplasm," is "inverted good" to those who 
look upon such deeds with the "psychology of the heart." 

"Since evil is not self-made, who or what hath made it" (42:8)? 

Man, with a reason, free will, and power to do right or wrong as 
he chooses to, made it. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"Man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God. 
How, then, has man a basis for wrong-doing? [Just the same as he 
has for right-doing in his faculty of free-will, and in his power to 
choose]. Whence does he obtain the propensity or power to do evil? 
Has Spirit resigned to matter the government of the universe" (109: 

531)? 

"No, but He has left it to man if by universe here is meant the 
moral and physical realms over which man has been placed to reign. 
If man had no inherent power of his own, to do as he pleases, in cer- 
tain things, then would it not have been an idle injunction for him to 
be told to "increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it" 
(Gen. 128) ? By the very fact that God enjoined man to "subdue" 
the earth the inference is deduced that a man is a being of free will 
and has power to do what he chooses to, and if he is such a being why 
then if he does a good deed it is a virtue that is real, and if he does 
an evil deed it is a sin that is also real. Is that sound logic and reas- 
oning or not? a. f. y. 

If man had no free will and power to do as he chooses to would it 
not be an idle mockery to tell him to "subdue" the earth? One surely 
would not say to a machine of small wheels, whose "motive power" is 
a large wheel, to do this or that, would one when the machine could 
already only do this or that? Well, then, when a being is enjoined, 



357 

commanded, to do a certain thing, it implies that that being has a free 
will and power to do as one chooses to, and if so then one can do 
either good or evil and either will be real whichever is done. It may 
be seen then "whence does" man "obtain the power to do evil." As to 
his "propensity to do evil," is a question I answered already in an- 
other chapter, where I stated that the emotions, appetites, and pas- 
sions were the impelling forces within us that are necessary to our 
preservation and perpetuation, and over which was placed a reason, 
free will, and power, to use, control, and govern them, and if we did 
not use them within the limits of their legitimate domain they be- 
came evil. 

As I want to kill two birds with one stone, I will interweave with 
the original C. S. teachings, some of the teachings of the "Reformed 
Christian Science Association," which is a, — I do not know what you 
might call it, — of the Mrs. Eddy C S. church. In its text book 
"Christology," that "Heavenly principle" (147:11), in which may be 
found the "last wiggle of the snake's tail," it says: 

"But when you come to realize the basic fact that God Almighty 
is All, and God is good and God is Love, [This sounds a little like 
the Mrs. Eddy C. S.] where, I ask you, is the hook to hang the thought 
upon that there is evil in existence" (147:229)? [An abstract thing 
does not need a "hook" to hang upon]. 

The answers given to the questions asked in the Mrs. Eddy C. S. 
pertaining to evil are applicable to that question, and I will, therefore, 
not make it a separate answer. I just brought that in so the reader 
may judge or a. f. y. whether or not there is much "reformed" C. S. in 
it after all. 

"Sickness, sin, and death — are false; they had no creator; they 
are but the vaporings of material thought, or material mind, and are 
false, as all other statements of materiality are. They do not and can 
not exist" (147:32). 

Yet for a thing that does not and cannot exist, "heroic treatment' 
was given by putting "nine healers on the case" (126:731, Sept. 1901). 
Think of it, nine healers working heroically on that which does not 
and can not exist! I wonder how many healers they would have put 
"on the case" if the thing had existed? 

Well, as I have not had the time to read all the literature belong- 
ing to every church that springs up every time that God makes a new 
revelation to those whom He calls — for a lady believes or thinks that 



358 

^'Grod called" the author of "Christology" to '"heli) ijroclaim his truths 
to the world" (Ibid 729),— I do not know what the key is to the under- 
standing of the "Keformed Christian Science Associations" teachings, 
whether it is the same as for the original C. S. in which the "intellect 
is a dethroned king,' or whether it is that the "intellect is a dethroned 
queen," I do not know. 

I will now give a quotation which is a fiat contradiction of the 
statement that sin does not and can not exist: 

"There never has been a sin committed, and never will be in all 
eternity, but what that sin [which does not and can not exist] was 
piinished until the person who committed it repented" (147:228). 

How can a thing be punished which does not and can not exist? 
But then it would not be "Keformed" if it did not contradict itself like 
the original 0. S. does. 

I have said quite a little about man having a free will and power 
to do as he chooses, and that that was the key to the solution of the 
question, whence is evil if God did not create it? But this seems to 
be questioned in C. S., that man has a free will, a soul, or mind of his 
own. Where a man has no free will, or soul, or mind of his own, 
then, of coiarse, he can not sin or do evil. 

"There is no finite soul or spirit" (109:462). "Soul is sinless not 
to be found in the body" (109;184) . "The suicidal belief that Soul is 
in the body regards death as a friend" (109:344). 

It is strange that Jesus should have been deluded by the "suicidal 
belief" that soul is in the body by saying: "For what shall it profit a 
man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul" (Mark 
8:36), and "fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill 
the soul : but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in 
hell" (Matt. 10:28). And if "there is no finite soul," and "Soul signi- 
fies Deity, and nothing else" (109:462), then according to what Jesus 
said there is a power that can destroy God in hell. 

When Jesus told His hearers the above, does any one suppose 
they were not before Him with bodies that contained invisible incor- 
poreal structures? What is it that animates the physical body? Can- 
not the soul animate the body and be in it in the same sense that the 
electric current is in the live wire? 

"Even according to tt-e teachings of natural science, man has 
never beheld Spirit, or Soul, leaving a body or entering it. [And for 
the same reason natural science says there is no God -because it "has 



359 

never beheld" Him.] What evidence is there in support of such a 
theory of indwelling spirit, except the evidence of mortal belief? 
What would be thought of the declaration that a house was inhabited, 
and by a certain kind of jjersons, when no such people were ever seen 
to go in or come out, or were even visible through the windows? Who 
can see a soul in the body" (109:474) ? 

Did you ever see a thought "go in or come out" of any one? Did 
you ever see a thought in a person ? If not, do you, therefore, believe 
a person has no thought? If not, can you not believe, then, that 
there is a soul in the body, even though you never saw one "go in or 
come out?" Could an atheist, who denies that man has a soul, ask a 
more soul-belief destroying question than C. S. has asked here? 

If it were not for its contradictions C. S. would have nothing in 
it that could be called Christian. 

"Man has an immortal soul" (141:19). 

Where is man's soul, then, if not in the body by which he is 
known as a distinct individual? Is there not a contradiction, then, in 
the teachings of C. S.? 

"It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul, that is lost. Soul is 
immortal, but sin is mortal" (146:21). 

When Jesus said: "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the 
whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul" (Mark 8:36), He must 
have been in error if C. S. is right when it says that it is "not a sinful 
soul that is lost." Which of the two do you believe is right, Jesus or 
C. S.? a. f. y. 

"During this chemicalization my thought was changed, and I no 
longer believed that my life was in or of matter, or that I had a soul 
in my body, but came into the understanding that there was but one 
God, Good, one Life, one Soul, and that was God, and God is x4.11-in- 
all" (137:729). 

I wonder what she thought she had in her body if she had no 
soul in it? When she said "my body" then it must have existence, 
for one can not speak of anything as mine unless it exists. Now, the 
question is. What was in heT body? Was it a finite soul, or was it 
the reflection of God as the reflection in a mirror of one's self is not 
one's real self, but only one's image? If it was the reflection of God, 
then God must know of the physical, for it certainly would be a 
mockery to say that God reflects Himself in that which He knows not 
of. 

C S. is now confronted with two propositions: one is, that there 



360 

is a finite soul indwelling in the body, and the other, that God re- 
flects Himself in a physical body, which, according to C. S. does not 
exist, because "God is all." Which of the two horns of the dilemma 
will it take? 

Can God reflect Himself in Himself, because He is all, just as He 
enters Himself because He is all, "there is nothing for Him to enter 
but Himself" (59:146-152), which would be like a sock turning itself 
outside in? That would be entering itself, would it not? 

"Your mirrored reflection is your own image, or likeness. If you 
lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of 
this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man, before 
the mirror, to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror Divine Sci- 
ence, and call man its reflection. Then note how true, according to 
Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the mirror re- 
flects yourself, so you, being spiritual, reflect God" (109:509). 

If that is an apt illustration then man is as devoid of free will as 
the mirrored reflection of one is. Can your reflection, in the mirror, 
move unless you move? If it cannot, then it has no free will, and if 
that is a true illustration of the relation between God and man, then 
man is nothing, just as one's reflection in the mirror is nothing, and 
one has no free will, just as the reflection in the mirror has no free 
will, because it cannot and does not move unless one moves, and if one 
has no free will, why, then of course one cannot sin, and sin and evil 
must be unrealities. But is it a fact that man is only, as it were, a mir- 
rored reflection of God? Can man not act independently, but only as 
God moves him to act? If he can then man has a free will. 

"Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves independent 
workers" (109:652). 

Is man a machine that he is not an independent worker? It is 
true that without God giving him something to work with and the 
power to work he could not work, but cannot man rob a bank inde- 
pendently of God? Cannot man blow to atoms a man's building, or 
murder one, or write an immoral book independently of God? If he 
cannot, then God is just as responsible for such evil deeds as the man 
is who commits them. Do you see now that men are "independent 
workers?" God made matter passive and man active, with a free will 
and a power to choose, and he is therefore a responsible being, an in- 
dependent workej-, and can make or create things with the material 
and the power which God has put at his disposal. 

"To claim that every man "is an independent separate personality* 



361 

possessing freedom of will and conscience, does not help the problem 
[Of sin and sickness,] but only increases- our difficulties" (137:8, 
April, 1900) "This contradictory position [Grod creating sickness 
and then also making medicine to cure sickness] leads us on the one 
hand to believe in Fate, and on the other in free will" (137:9, April, 

1900). 

It may be seen, then, that C. S. does not believe in free will, and 
if such is the case then the following cannot help but be true: 

"Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death, inasmuch as he 
derives his essence from God" (109:471). 

"The great truth that man was, is, and ever shall be perfect is 
incontrovertible, for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is not 
inverted" (109:426). 

Of course not, if man is only, as it were, a mirrored reflection of 
God, he could not be "inverted," unless it was at such times when 
God entered Himself, because "there is nothing for Him to enter but 
Himself." No doubt man would then be "inverted," when God had 
turned Himself outside in — entering Himself — and this act of God 
was reflected in man. 

"The great spiritual fact must be brought out that,man is not shall 
be, perfect and immortal" (109:426). 

Yet Jesus told us to be perfect, which implies that we could be 
imperfect. 

"God is as incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death, as He 
is of experiencing these errors. How, then, is it possible for Him to 
create man subject to this trial of errors, [What is the cause of these 
"errors" if God is the only cause?] when man is made in the divine 
likeness" (109:302)? 

Because God is incapable of experiencing sin, sickness and death, 
and man is made in his likeness, does that mean that man can only 
experience what God can? If so, then man is a God or sub-God and 
ought to do those things which God can do. But can man do what 
God can do? Can man create even a blade of grass, let alone an intri- 
cate organism, as man is? 

What does "in the image and likeness" of God mean? Does it 
not mean free will and understanding? Did God not have a free will 
so He could create man, or not create him, if He wanted to? That is 
wrongly interpreted in C. S., that image and likeness and reflection 
proposition. 

"Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so much natural 



362 

doubt and questioning as this, that God knows no such thing as sm" 
(140:1). 

That doctrine rests on Habakkuk 1:13, where it says that "Grod is 
too pure to behold iniquity." Because God is too pure to behold in- 
iquity does that preclude His capability of knowing that there is such 
a thing as iniquity — sin? When the Scriptures say that "I have ac- 
knowledged my sin to thee" (Ps. 31:5), and I am he that blot out 
thy iniquities for my own sake, and I will not remember thy sins" 
(Isa. 43:25), and, "I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and 
thy sins as a mist" (Isa. 44:22), does any one for a moment believe 
that God did not know of such a thing as sin? Can you not, if you 
are sober, upright, and moral, know of drunkenness, dishonesty, rob- 
bery, immoraliy, etc., when you can see and hear of them? If you 
can, then, cannot God know of them also? How could God "not re- 
member sins," and blot them out "as a mist" unless He once knew of 
them? 

0. S. claims to take the Scriptures for its guide to eternal Life, 
but it seems that it should be "we take of the Scriptures whit suits 
us for our guide to eternal Life." And that which they do take they 
interpret spiritually if it does not fit their doctrines if interpreted 
materially, and materially if it fits their doctrines. C. S. may accuse 
others of playing fast and loose with the Scriptures, but it seems it is 
quite apt at it itself. 

If "God knows no such thing as sin," how did He come to send 
Jesus, then, to "save His people from their sins" (Matt. 121)? 
Was it because there was a time then when only eight out of ninety 
thousand were saved — and six of those had to go to purgatory first 
— "and all the rest were condemned to eternal torments" (7:337), 
that God said to His Son: 

"Beloved Son," — who, "according to the eternal decrees of God, 
was to give himself up voluntarily to death" (5:226), that we might 
have the eternal life which we might have had without the death 
of Jesus on the Cross, if God had let Adam "put forth his hand, 
and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 
3:22) — "as I am the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and can, 
therefore, not contradict myself, for I will in the future reveal to 
my servant the year after the death of a certain doctor, that I know 
of no such a thing as sin, therefore go down and clothe yourself 



363 

in illusion — flesh — and see what is wrong down there, because we 
are getting only eight out of ninety thousand who die?" 

Was that the reason, as just given, why God sent Jesus "to 
save His people from their sins," because He "knows no such 
thing as sin?" Hardly. Well, then, God does know of such a 
thing as sin, notwithstanding what C. S. teaches to the contrary. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"In science we learn it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; 
and it will be found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and 
not a sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the substitution of 
the word sense for soul, gives the exact meaning in a majority of 
cases" (109:477). 

If it is only the "sense of sin which is lost, and not a sinful 
soul," then was Jesus non compos mentis — not of sound mind — 
when He said : "For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole 
world, and suflPer the loss of his soul" (Mark 8:36)? Would it not 
be a good thing to suffer the loss of the sense of sin? Of course, 
as there is no "finite soul or spirit" (109:462), I suppose this is 
where the substitution of the word sense for soul, gives the exact 
meaning of what Jesus meant, which is no doubt good advice not 
to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of one's sense as I did, 
when I had my "physical powers enhanced," in 1898, so I could 
not walk three blocks to a street car. 

"The misnamed human soul is material sense, which sinneth 
and shall die; for it is an error or false sense of mentality in mat- 
ter, and matter has no sense. You will admit that S»)ul is the 
Life of man. Now if Soul sinned, it would die; for 'the wages of 
sin is death"' (124:76). 

Does the "material sense, which sinneth and shall die," die 
when it commits its first sin? If it does not, then why should the 
soul of a "theological mythoplasm" die when it commits its first 
sin? Soul then may sin, as the Scriptures say, and man still live 
may he not, if soul does not die when it commits its first sin 
any more so than "material sense" dies when it commits its first 
sin? C. S. then is mistaken when it says that it is the "material 
sense" which sinneth and shall die, is it not? a. f. y. 

Sin and sickness are "mortal inventions" (140:74). How can 
mortals invent anything when they are mistaken — egotists — for be- 
lieving "themselves independent workers, personal authors, and 



364 

even privileged originators of something" (109:159)? Whence, then, 
did mortals derive their power to "invent" if God is the only cause? 

Man "has no separate mind from God" (109:471). According 
to that, then, all this that I have said about C. S. or any other 
subject in this book is not of my mind but of God. I hope all of 
you will remember that, so that when you read anything in this 
book that does not just suit you, you will say, "John Hunkey is 
not to blame for this, he has no mind of his own or separate mind 
from God." 

Good, I shall take refuge behind that statement if any one 
should, after reading this book, accuse me of discourtesy, flip- 
pancy, disrespect, scoffing, jesting, etc. 

It is because man "has no separate mind from God," which is 
the cause of the following: 

"The Christian Scientists of this city [not Atchison, although 
the same state of affairs has existed here also] are rejoicing that 
harmony has again been restored, and all are dwelling together in 
brotherly love, have dropped all personal differences, [Yet they had 
no separate mind from God, Who must then have been the cause 
of 'all personal differences.'] and are now working for the good of 
the cause" (137:668, Jan. 1899). 

Which "personal differences" were no doubt due to the fact 
that the "Soul, or Mind of man is God, the divine principle of all 
being, and the real man is governed by this Soul, instead of sense 
by the law of Spirit, not of matter" (109:198). 

"The world of sense is believing in many minds; is believing 
that each individual person has a mind of his own, which is being 
influenced by, and is influencing every other mind; [As the C. S. D. 
did who withdrew from the congregation of the church because not 
elected reader, and starting another number of the church "influ- 
enced" that C. S. D's. students to come to the church of a new num- 
ber] ; hence the world of sense is a seething sea of mesmerism, hyp- 
notism, and animal magnetism. Each one mesmerizing the other, 
[By manipulating "the head, ignorant that this could harm or hinder 
the spiritual direction of thought" (139:415), before others made the 
accusation that C. S. was Quimby mesmerism] until no one knows 
himself, where he stands, [Until the church committee has elected the 
readers for a year], what he believes, or whither he is tending" 
(137:397,398 Sept. 1899). 

It may be seen then that in C. S. there is no finite soul, no 



365 

individual mind, therefore, no free will, hence no evil — sin. That is 
one side .of the question. But as Christian Science is contradictory 
I will present the other side after giving again a little sprinkling of 
Christology on the non-existence of evil. 

"Truth dispels evil as light dispels darkness. Take a candle 
into a dark room, darkness is dispelled. The fact is there never was 
any darkness, it was simply the absence of light. So with evil: all 
evil is in appearance, it only belongs to this claim of materiality. 
You touch this appearance of evil with the reality of Truth and evil 
is dispelled and Truth is triumphant" (148:7). [The higher over- 
coming the lower, nevertheless a reality]. 

According to that, evil is an unreality, simply being the absence 
of Truth, as darkness is nothing but the absence of light, therefore 
not real. 

Does any one believe that the drouth of 1901 was not real, sim- 
ply being the absence of rain? The fact that a thing is absent can- 
not its oppc)site therefore be real? If virtue is absent and one is 
immoral, is the latter, therefore, not real? If sobriety is absent and 
one is drunk is drunkenness not real? If rain is absent and a 
drought prevails, is the drought not real? If light is absent and 
darkness exists is not darkness real? If health is absent and one 
is sick, is sickness, therefore, not real? If Yes must be said to all 
that then may not evil — sin — be real because Truth is absent? 

The fact that Truth dispels evil and is then triumphant shows 
that evil may be a reality but that it can be overcome by a higher 
law or power, just as man can overcome gravitation with an engine 
and a derrick. That is surely no way to overcome a reality by de- 
nying its existence. What would be thought of a man who denied 
the existence of gravitation yet secured an engine and a derrick to 
hoist anything with it? That is the position of C. S. and its oflP- 
spring on evil — sin, and likewise their position on disease. 

To me it seems it is making a mockery of Grod to ask Him to 
destroy and heal illusions, unrealities. It would redound more to His 
honor and power to ask Him to destroy evil and heal diseases that 
are real, rather than being nothingness, things which do not exist. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Now for the contradictions. "We cannot escape the penalty due 
for sin" (109:311). Who inflicts the penalty if "God knows no such 
thing as sin" (140:1), and sin is not a quality "of Soul" (109:387?) 



366 

"Taking the livery of heaven wherewith to cover iniquity, is 
the most fearful sin that mortals can commit" (124:19). Sin must, 
then, be a reality after all, if a superlative comparison can*be made 
of it, notwithstanding the fact that C S. teaches that there is no 
place for it, because God is all. Is that not so? 

"Through proving to him that sin is responsible for sickness 
the sinner is reformed" (58:149, Nov. 6, 1902). Sin, then, must be 
a reality if it is "responsible for sickness," is that not so? 

But is sin always responsible for sickness? What sin was there 
in me for going barefooted, when plowing for corn, which gave me 
an attack of rheumatism, to which reference has already been made? 
Or what did Dr. Dowie's devil have to do with it? Dr. Dowie says 
"that every kind [Notice, ^^every kind'"'\ of sickness, and every kind 
of disease from which you suffer, or from which any one on this 
earth suffers is the work of the devil" (106:15). 

Is it a sin, or the work of the devil, to go barefooted, making 
labor lighter and saving wear and tear on one's boots? If it is a 
sin, or a work of the devil, to lighten labor and to save, then all 
our inventions that lighten labor are sins and works of the devil. 
But do you believe it? If not, then C. S. and Dowieism are false 
teachers, are they not, for saying that "sin is responsible for sick- 
ness," and that "every kind of sickness, and * * * disease * * * 
is the work of the devil? a. f. y. 

"In proportion to a man's spiritual progress, he will indeed 
drink of our Master's cup, and be baptized with his baptism! be 
purified as by fire, the fires of suffering." "Man is as perfect now, 
and henceforth, and forever, as when the stars first sang together" 
(124:125, 187). 

How, in the name of the intellect, a God-given faculty, can 
that which is perfect be purified by the "fires of suffering?" Can 
a thing that is perfect be made more perfect than perfect? Only 
another contradiction in which C. S. so plentifully abounds, is it 
not? a. f. y. 

"Mortals are free moral agents, to choose whom they would 
serve" (140:75). 

Man must then have a free vpill and a mind of his own, after 
all, if he can choose whom he would serve? Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"Will-power is not science. It belongs to the senses, and its 
use is to be condemned." "Will-power is but an illusion of belief. 



367 

and this illusion commits depredations on harmony. Human will is 
an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern 
man aright"' (109:38, 486). 

Are those two quotations of C. S. true? 

When I was nineteen years old my Good Intent schoolmates 
got up a surprise party on me to celebrate my birthday. As they 
were all Protestants they, the girls especially, tabooed the use of 
liquor of any kind. Well, the night of the party some uninvited 
ones, who believed that no celebration was complete without wine, 
and who believed that because we were Germans we would have 
an old country kind of a feast, came to the party, being on inti- 
mate terms with my parents, and brought with them a jug of wine. 
Now, two parties of such opposite sentiments certainly could not 
meet at the same place and all enjoy themselves to the fullest ex- 
tent. I noticed that that was the state of the ones who got up 
the party, and I explained to them how it must have come about 
that those not invited should have been at the party, and brought 
the wine with them, telling them at the same time that to prove 
to them that I did not myself believe in anyone intruding with a 
jug of wine, that I would never again drink another drop of liquor 
of any kind. And I have not to this day, excepting where it was 
prescribed by i^hysicians who attended me in my illness, drank a 
drop of liquor of any kind. 

Of course I was no drinker up to my nineteenth birthday, 
drinking at the most a few drinks of whiskey only during harvest 
time, which was a practice, in those days, without self-binders and 
probably a half of a dozen, or less, glasses of wine in a year. I 
never did buy any liquor in a saloon. Now as I did not call on 
God to help me to keep my resolve, and I did not know such a 
thing as C. S. existed, what was it but will-power that enabled me 
to keep my resolve to this day, a period of over twenty-one years? 
And was that resolve not a good one, especially so as in a few 
years I left the] farm and went to a large city, where any one, 
with the least observation, may know and see that the temptation 
held out for dinkers is great ?r 

Again, had I not been a total abstainer when I was so greatly 
disappointed in 1891, of which mention has already been made, and 
had, like so many do in such cases, [For I read an account once, 
in a daily paper years ago, where a promising young man, at whose 



368 

disposal his father placed fifty thousand dollars on the eve of his 
wedding, but whose intended eloped with another on the day set 
for the wedding (such was not the state in my case, however, for 
there was not even a rival), who vowed when he heard of it that he 
would not draw another sober breath as long as he lived. He kept 
his word and died in the gutter at the end of twenty-five years of 
drunkenness] resorted to drink to try to drown to forgetfulness 
my disappointment, is it not prohable that I would be a drunken 
wreck today or probably have gone to a drunkard's grave ere this? 
And if I had gone to a drunkard's grave, in a good j)hysical con- 
dition, otherwise, is not my present sober condition, with stiff 
hips, due to the fall that gave me the "kink in the back," as the 0. 
S. sympathizer called it, better than be dead in a drunkard's grave? 

Well, then, if that resolve was made and kept by will-power, is 
will-power then a thing whose "use is to be condemned," because it 
is "an animal proiDensity * * * hence it cannot govern man 
aright?" Has not my will-power governed me aright, in the resolve 
not to drink liquor, when I have come out sober out of a great city 
and a great disappointment? For I never asked God to jjreserve me 
from the pitfalls of intemperance, nor did I use C. S. for I did not 
investigate it until 1897. What was it then but human will, will- 
power? And if it was that is "its use to be condemned?" a. f. y. 

Who gave us will-power but God? And have we not as much 
right to use it aright as we have to use aright our eyes, ears, hands 
and feet? God governs the universe by law; has made matter pas- 
sive; made man active, endowing him with reason, intellect, free will, 
will-power, and power to do what he chooses to do, and says to him 
to exercise them, within the limits of their legitimate domain, other- 
wise he will suffer the consequences, not as an arbitrarily inflicted 
punishment as a vengeance of God, but in the natural order as a 
sequence to a cause, just as an operator's error or negligence will 
result in the collision of two passenger trains, running at full speed, 
and causing the death and the wounding of scores of persons, ac- 
counts of which appear in the daily papers from time to time. 

It may be said that I was not, in one sense of the term, ad- 
dicted to the taste of liquor enough to make it a case where it 
required the exercise of any or much will-power. If so, then I will 
cite another experience of mine, which, had it occurred after my 
investigation of C. S., it might be attributed to the influence of its 



"369 

teachings, as I have heard some testify in C. S. experience meet- 
ings that C. S. produced that result in them, and that is in regard 
to playing cards. 

My parents were no card players, not knowing one card from 
another, excepting by the spots and colors, therefore there was no 
card i>laying at home before I left it for the city. In my residence 
of nearly four years in Chicago I never played a game of cards, but 
when I arrived at Kansas City I played cards the first evening 
there, because I spent that evening at the house of acquaintances 
whom I had known when I lived on the farm, and who had moved 
to Kansas City later. I kept up the practice of playing cards every 
time I had an invitation to do so, so that in time I became so fond 
of cards that one Saturday night, in making visits to relatives and 
friends in the country, I sat down at nine o'clock to play cards. 
We played until four o'clock Sunday morning, and would probably 
have played, and not gone to bed at all,- had it not been winter and 
we let the fire go out on us, making it too cold to play any longer. 

When I was at two difPerent health resorts at different times, 
seeking health, I played a great deal of cards to i^ass away the time, 
and noticed certain men, who lived at those places, from early morn- 
ing until late at night inlaying cards in the offices, with any who 
would play with them. On noticing them there so regularly I asked 
some, connected with the hotels, who these men are that hang around 
so much playing cards, and what they did for a living. The an- 
swers invariably were that they were citizens of the place and that 
their wives were running boarding houses. I thought to myself, 
oho! wives supporting husbands instead of husbands supporting 
wives. 

Well when I got home again I played cards, until I saw that it 
might one day, should I ever get married, a thought I then still en- 
tertained, result in my wife supporting me, just as I saw those men 
at the health resorts were supported by their wives. And as I saw 
my desire to play cards kept on growing, — for a thing grows by 
what it feeds on — so that I would play nearly every Sunday after- 
noon and evening ujd to just in time enough to catch the last car, 
as was often the case, that I began to reflect a little, and made up 
my mind that if I wanted to be a man different from such as were 
called men who let their wives support them instead of them sup- 
porting their wives, I must do as Jesus said, if anything in thee 



370 

cause thee to offend cut it off and cast it from thee, and must stop 
playing cards, which I did, at the same time sticking into the stove 
two decks of cards. I have not played since nor have I a desire to 
play. This resolve I made before I investigated C. S. Now, what 
was that but human will, will-power? And if it was — for it could not 
have been anything else, for I did not pray first to God to give me 
the strength to make the resolve and to keep it, nor did I have C- 
S. — then, should its use be "condemned," because it is, according to 
C S., "an animal propensity * * * hence it cannot govern man 
aright?" 

Of course those who think there is nothing wrong in playing 
cards occasionally may think that I, by my act, showed that I feared 
I had not the strong will-power necessary to quit when it bordered 
on danger, as for instance, gambling, should I want to quit then. 
The same may be said, also, about moderate drinking. But does it 
not show just as strong, if not stronger, will-power to say No, to the 
first game of cards and the first glass of liquor as not to be able to 
say No, when one has been brought to the precipice of danger? 

What gambler or what drunkard did not feel at one time, when 
they were yet but moderate indulgers in those things, that they could 
say No, when they thought they ought to, but who could not do so 
when that time came? 

Is there not as much will-power shown in refusing the first 
glass of liquor, because it does you in reality no good, as to drink 
moderately for friendship's sake only? Moderate drinking and card 
playing are all right when everything is just so — running smooth- 
ly — but when the times of troubles, disappointments, and despon- 
dencies come then it is where the danger lies in not being a total 
abstainer from liquor and cards. It is when rough sailing comes 
that moderate drinking is likely to become drunkenness, and mod- 
erate card playing becomes gambling. 

Do you suppose that one who never played cards is likely to 
sit in a poker game to try to win, but who in the end is usually 
the loser? How many a good business has there not been ruined 
by the proprietors of them gambling? Money that should have 
gone to pay bills for merchandise went for gambling, and then they 
failed and settled with their creditors for from twenty-five to fifty 
cents on the dollar, and if they were bills for goods that a state 
prohibits the sale of, therefore not collectable by law, refuse to pay 



371 

for them altogether. Yes, and they are quite often church mem- 
bers, too. 

I have had experience and know what a feeling it is to desire 
to play cards. It almost amounts to nervousness, although I never 
played cards where anything was at stake, simply playing for pass 
time and pleasure, but I feel a greater pleasure now that is con- 
tinuous by not playing cards at all. I suppose the reason I could 
break off so abruptly the use of liquor and the desire for card play- 
ing was probably due to the fact that my parents were virtually total 
abstainers from those habits, which, therefore, did not implant in me 
a hereditary inclination and desire for cards and liquor such as many 
have whose parents were card players and drinkers. 

I have noticed that where a desire, or inclination, or characteris- 
tic was pronounced in parents, it was, as a rule, to be found in their 
children, also, and having read works on heredity in connection with 
my observations, I came to the conviction that inherent tendencies in 
parents are transmitted to their children, so that I was once im- 
pelled to suggest "The Gamblers' Ancestors' Club" as a fit name for 
a card club, which asked, through the papers, for an appropriate 
name for a club of young card players. 

I do, not say that moderate drinking and card playing are sin- 
ful things, but they are practices which tread on dangerous ground, 
and it is always best to be on the safe side. As to card playing 
being a thing necessary to pass away time, I have found, since I quit 
playing cards, that one can pass the time just as quickly, more 
pleasantly, and within seasonable hours, — giving more time for need- 
ful rest at night,^in ordinary conversation, as one can in playing 
cards, and one did not have to become excited, boisterous and quar- 
relsome as is often the case in playing cards. 

From time to time one may read in the daily papers items like 
these: "Killed at Cards," "Killed in a Saloon Brawl," etc. Now if 
those men had never played cards, or drank liquor, they would not 
have had occasion to sit in a game of cards, or to go into a saloon, 
— that most abominable, detestable, demoralizing, impoverishing and 
nauseating human institution that exists, which causes more poverty, 
hunger, raggedness, misery, suffering and heart-breaks to women and 
helpless children, than any other agency under the sun, — and have 
been killed thus. 

Even Samuel Johnson, in his day, thought that visits to card 
tables was time lost. 

"At card tables, however brilliant, I have always thought my 



372 

visit lost, for I could know nothing of the company but their clothes 
and their faces. I saw their looks clouded at the beginning of every 
game with a uniform solicitude, now and then in its progress varied 
with a short triumph, at one time wrinkled with cunning, at another 
deadened with despondency, or by accident flushed with rage at the 
unskillful or unlucky play of a partner" (149:27, Vol. 1). 

Can there be any pleasure in a game of cards such as is here de- 
scribed? But then there is no use to preach against card playing, 
people will play anyway. I just brought in that subject to prove 
that will-power is not an "illusion," as C. S. teaches, and that one can 
pass the time without playing cards. 

Now, according to my resolves, which I made in regard to 
liquor and cards, are they not the result of the exercise of will- 
power, because I did not pray to God for strength — which is a 
poor conception of God's character to think that He would only 
supply us with strength when we ask for it — to make and keep 
my resolutions, nor had I yet investigated C. S.? And you who 
do not believe in the use of liquor and in playing cards, do you 
think that the use of will-power, the way I used it, should be con- 
demned? a. f. y, 

If people would cultivate more their will-power, instead of de- 
l)ending on the "supernatural" protections of the Blessed Virgin, 
for whom it is utterly impossible to attend to over 46,000 ijersons 
every second of time, the Saints, medals, scapulars, holy water, and 
Spirit, Soul, etc., and know that God had already endowed them 
with the necessary strength to keep from falling into pits, and that 
they are the ones who are responsible if they do fall, they would 
be much better off physically, mentally, and morally. It is just as 
a writer says about will-power: 

"What can be more beautiful to the average man than the ac- 
quisition of a proper amount of will-power, if he is not already in 
possession of it; and, if it is by nature or acquisition, its retention 
and cultivation as one of the strongest mental [Or as 0. S. calls it, 
mind J forces for attack and defense. * * * Mental poise, self- 
reserve force are the offspring of will-power" (150:181, Vol. No. 7). 

Is will-power then a thing to be condemned, if mental 'poise, 
self-reliance and reserve force are the offspring of it? 

What is this but auto-suggestion due to the exercise of will- 
power: "Meet the incipient stages of disease with such powerful 



373 

eloquence as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an 
inhuman law'' (109:389)? 

Is that asking God to stay the progress of a disease in its in- 
cipiency by meeting it with "powerful eloquence"? What is "pow- 
erful eloquence" but the exercise of will-power? It may be seen 
then that the position of C. S. on will-power is wrong, and adds 
another error to its long list of them. 

We will now see what the position of C S. is on sickness and 
disease. 

"One disease is no more real than another, All disease is the 
result of education [I wonder what education a hog had that died 
of cholera, or cattle that died of Texas fever],. and can carry its 
ill-effect no further than mortal mind maps out the way" (108:69). 
"There is really no mortal mind" (109:308). 

If there is then no mortal mind how can it map "out the way" 
for anything? Only a little more "verbiage," eh? 

"What is termed disease does not exist" (109:81). I suppose 
in the case where a patient died of consumption, and the healers 
sent a bill to the deceased's estate for nearly a hundred dollars, they 
were then attempting to obtain money under false pretenses for pre- 
tending to heal a disease that does "not exist." 

"Does a law of God produce sickness, and man put that law 
under his feet by healing sickness" (109:126)? 

Does a law of God produce gravitation and man put it under 
his feet by using an engine and a derrick? It is no more initting 
a law of God under foot to use things that will overcome disease ■ 
as it is to use tilings that will overcome gravitation. 

C. S. will probably ask, Whether I believe God created medi- 
cines, and if so. He must have designed disease and sickness. 

When a man, through carelessness on his part, or on the part 
of some one else, meets with a mishap that causes him to break a 
bone, did God design that? And if God, who is omniscient, fore- 
saw that His creatiire of reason, free will, and power to do as he 
chooses to, would, through neglect, thoughtlessness, and wrong use 
of reason and free will, take a step that would cause pain, disease, 
and sickness could He not therefore have put remedies at man's 
disposal without designing, accident, disease, and sickness? 

But it will probably be said that if God created medicines why 
did He not reveal to man the formulas for their use? Why did 



374 

not God reveal the form«la for the use of electricity; or for the 
making of breakfast foods and the eating of them; or for the weav- 
ing and making of clothes from wool or cotton or silk; or for the 
making of angel food and devil's food cakes; or for making and the 
playing of the piano or any other musical instrument, etc.? The 
only answer that I can think of why Grod did not reveal those things, 
and make them instinctive knowledge, is because, if man knew all 
those things instinctively his life would be as monotonous as that 
of the animals, and he would have nothing in which to exercise 
his mind. 

Supposing that every j)erson knew instinctively everything that 
is to be known, then there would be nothing to look forward to, 
and if there is nothing to hojje for then man would be without 
endeavor and what would such a hum-drum, monotonous life be? 
Is there not pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge? 

It is said that animals know instinctively what remedy to go 
after when they are ill, just like they know everything else which 
is necessary for their preservation and perpetuation, — which j^roves 
that the theory of the transmutation of species, — that man descended 
from an animal — taught by Evolutionists and Atheists, is false, and 
that special creation is true. Just wait until I get to their theories 
and you may see how much "intellectual progress" Evolutionists and 
Atheists possess. 

It may be seen, then, that a law of God produces sickness, 
disease, or accident as, for instance, God's law of gravitation may 
cause a man, who has been careless in one way or another, to fall 
from a building in such a maniier as to break a bone or bruise the 
flesh, without God designing it even though He has put remedies 
at man's disposal to overcome, pain, sickness, and disease. 

When two passenger trains, through the carelessness of some one, 
collide, have a smash-up, and some are wounded and their pains 
are alleviated by hypodermic injections of certain drugs, can it be 
said then that God designed that "smash-up" because He has given 
man a remedy to relieve the pains that that smash -up was the 
cause of? And so is it with disease and sickness. 

"Man is never sick; for mind is not sick, and matter cannot 
be" (199:392(. 

Then why the need of C. S. for healing the sick if "man is 
never sick"? What is sick then if man is never sick and matter 



375 

cannot be sick and there is no mortal mind? Will C. S. please 
give an intelligible answer to that? You know that I am a person 
of "presumptuous ignorance," and I want to be "learned" some- 
thing so as to get rid of that epithet. 

"If sickness is true, or the idea of Truth, you cannot destroy 
it, and it would be absurd to attempt it" (199:491). 

If a building is on fire, the fire department could not destroy 
the fire, and it would be absurd to attempt it if the fire is truly 
fire, if C. S. is true. But do you believe that the fire department 
cannot destroy a fire that is true, and that it would be absurd to 
attempt to destroy the fire, to attempt to put it out? If then a 
fire that is true can be destroyed cannot God's healing laws of 
nature destroy sickness that is true? a. f. y. 

Now for a little pinch of Christology. 

"Pour upon him [The patient] fact upon fact, reason upon 
reason, logic upon logic; convince him thoroughly that it is im- 
possible for such conditions to exist, and when you have thus con- 
vinced his mind, in a logical manner, that he cannot be sick, he 
is not sick" (147:62). "This belief of which mortal belief says you 
have [How can anything that does not exist say, 'you have'?], is 
untrue, unreal, and false, is not, never was, and never can be; for 
the spiritual man can have no illness, he is perfect, living in Grod" 
(148:12). 

Yet for that which "is not, never was, and never can be" they 
put on 7iine healers to give this nothing "heroic treatment" (136:631). 
Do you see any "Reformed" C. S. in that? 

Now back to the original 0. S. again. 

"In Science, the cure of the sick demonstrates this grand ver- 
ity of Christian Science, that you cannot eradicate disease [Proba- 
bly God can] if you admit that God sends it [Have I not proven 
that God does not send it?] or sees it" (141:49). 

So Science then must work indepently of God if it cures the 
sick without God seeing it or knowing anything about it. Well, 
that only proves my assertion, already made, that C. S. is merely 
mental suggestion, and is not Christ-healing. 

"If you wish to heal by argument, [The Apostles healed "in the 
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" (Acts 3:6).] find the type of the 
ailment, get its name, [Where? In medical books or parlance? How 
can- they be consulted for the "type of the ailment," and its name, 



376 

if "knowledge" — (which medical knowledge is) — "gained from mat- 
ter, and through the material senses, is only an illusion of mortal 
mind" (109:170)? Does C. S. consult "illusion" for the "type of the 
ailment," and its name?] and array your mental plea [Suggestion] 
against the physical. Argue with the patient ("mentally not audi- 
bly") [As j)lain as day that that is suggestion, is it not? a. f. y.] that 
he has no disease, [Mesmerize or hypnotize him, like an operator on 
the stage hypnotizes his subject into believing he is fishing; or going 
to go swimming, and who then makes preparations for that by be- 
ginning to disrobe himself before the audience.] and conform the 
argument to the evidence" (109:410). 

Does not that quotation prove irrefutably that C. S. is merely 
mental suggestion, and is not Apostolical healing? a. f. y. 

"The sick unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against 
it. They admit its reality, [Which C. S. is beginning to do too, -v^hen 
it "advises that 'until the public thought becomes better acquainted 
with Christian Science, the Christian Scientists shall decline to doc- 
tor infectious or contagious diseases' "- (58:152, 153, Nov. 6,1902).] 
whereas they should deny it. They should plead in opi^osition to the 
testimony of the deceitful senses, and maintain man's immortality 
and eternal harmony" (109:398). 

Yet C. S. is admitting the "testimony of the deceitful senses" — 
which can see fair weather in the "midst of murky clouds and 
drenching rain" by looking at a barometer — in advising Chiistian 
Scientists to "decline to doctor infectious or contagious diseases." 

How do they know which are "infectious or contagious diseases," 
and which are not, if the senses are deceitful? They cannot know 
by seeing it with their own eyes, because they are deceitful, making 
"sky and tree-tops apparently join hands" (109:16), and they cannot 
know by being told it, for the sense of hearing is not to be depended 
on (109:485). 

"Sickness is always hallucination" (109:406). What "hallucina- 
tion" is there in going barefooted when plowing for corn, which caused 
rheumatism? If anything is "hallucination" it ought to be for wear- 
ing foot-gear, for it is only "human belief" that creates cold, there- 
fore man ought to go without foot-gear as animals do, who have no 
"human beliefs" to create heat or cold. Then why did the going 
barefooted cause an "hallucination" of rheumatism? 

"No breakage [of bones] or dislocation can really occur. You 



377 

say that accidents, injuries, and diseases kill man; but this is not 
true. The life of the man is Mind. [Yet it has to be fed with food, 
Mind telling Mind, — if man has no separate mind of his own, — 
"Behold I have given you (that is. Mind, Myself, which I enter be- 
cause there is nothing for Me to enter but Myself, because I am 
'All') every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have 
in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat" Gen. 1:29.] 
The material body manifests only what mortal mind [Which does not 
exist] admits, whether it be a broken bone, disease or sin" (109:401). 
"Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, 
it is better to leave the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations 
["No breakage or dislocation can really occur."] to the fingers of a 
surgeon, while you confine yourself chiefly to mental reconstruction" 
(109:400). 

That is like the Catholic Mass, that can relieve those in Purga- 
tory, because we have no way of proving it to the contrary by direct 
evidence, while the Mass does not helj) the sick priests and others 
here where we can see it. 

"Mental reconstruction" is not so evident a performance as would 
be the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations by merely men- 
tal suggestion, therefore, it is "better to leave the adjustment of 
broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon." 

C. S. is indeed a pretty smoothly constructed Science with which 
to "bumfoozle" those with whom the "intellect is a dethroned king." 

Bat if Mind — God — does the healing in C. S. of the ills of the 
flesh, why should He not also be 'able to adjust "broken bones and 
dislocations" and heal them? Has God more power over the flesh 
and blood — which is "not the product of God" (145:36) — than He 
has over bones? What has the "advancing age" to do with the 
mind — or rather the God of the Christian Scientists, when now 
"Science is- more than usually effected in the treatment of moral 
ailments" of the "profane or atheistic invalid" (109:33), therefore, 
"it does not follow that" they "cannot be healed in Christian Science," 
and because C. S. has "healed infidels, when the only objection to 
this method was, that I as a Christian Scientist believed in the 
Holy Spirit, while the patients did not" 109:304, 805)? 

If infidels and atheists can now be healed of diseases, and who 
are unbelievers, — which shows that it does not make any ditt'erence 
to the healers whether patients believe or not, — then why must we 



378 

wait until the "advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of 
Mind" before broken bones and dislocations can be adjusted and 
healed in C. S.? Does the present age admit the efficacy and 
supremacy of Mind? Yet C. S. believes it heals diseases and sick- 
nesses now, despite the fact that the present age does not admit the 
"efficacy and supremacy of Mind." 

And what is the tendency of the "advancing age" but towards 
atheism and away from the belief in a Supreme Being, supremacy 
of Mind? If C. S. can now heal ills of the flesh, where there is "no 
faith" (124:33) in the patient, then why should not C. S. adjust 
broken bones and dislocations and heal them now as well as when 
the "advancing age" has admitted the efficacy and supremacy of 
Mind? Some more "verbiage," is it not? a. f. y. 

"Lust, hatred, and dishonesty make a man sick" (109:4Cj^ 
Sickness, then, must be a reality, must it not, if three things m ;j:c 
it so? a. f. y. 

"It is unchristian to believe that pain and sickness are anything 
hxht illusions" (124:68). "The pains of sense are salutary, if they 
wrench away false pleasurable beliefs, [As, for instance, in seeing 
the decorations and crowds of a Corn Carnival, or be in a box night 
after night at a horse show (19: Oct. 23, 1902)] and transplant the 
affections from sense to Soul" (109:161). "The very word ^7Zw«^o/^, 
points to nothingness" (109:23). 

According to C. S., then, to believe i^ain is an "illusion" is 
Christian, and this Christian belief in an "illusion," which is "noth- 
ingness," — nothing — is "salutary," making it salutary in C. S. to 
believe in nothing. Well, that may be just as good a thing to do 
for those, with whom the "intellect is a dethroned king," as to 
believe in "deceitful senses" which tell us that it is fair weather 
in the "midst of murky clouds and drenching rain" simply because 
a barometer points to fair weather at the time. 

"Grod will heal the sick through man, whenever man is gov- 
erned by God" (109:491). "If God has any real knowledge of sin, 
sickness, and death, they must be eternal" (140:16). 

Here, then, if God heals a sick person He dees not know that 
the person is sick, doing- a thing about which He knows nothing, 
for if He knew of sickness it would be eternal, and if eternal He 
could not heal it, for if He healed it it would not be eternal. I 



379 

suppose all that appears to you '•scientifically, understandingly, and 
demonstrably" (437:396, Sept. 1899.). 

"It is the transgression of a law of mortal mind, not of mat- 
ter or of divine law, which causes the belief of sickness" (109:125). 
"All disease, says Christian Science, is the product of sin, or some 
form of false thinking" (137:467, Oct. 1899). 

Are those last two quotations true? 

There is a disease in existence which I will use in proving 
that the teaching of C. S. is wrong in its theory as to the origin 
or cause of sickness or disease, that I will speak of it, although I 
would rather use some other illustration, yet this is so strongly to 
the point that it is so plainly to be seen in the case in which I 
will use it, that C. S. is wrong when it says that sickness is the 
"transgression of a law of mortal mind," or that it is the "product 
of sin, or some form of false thinking." That disease is venereal 
disease which C. S. says, "tears the black mask from the shame- 
less brow of licentiousness," and "torments its victim" (124:210). 

I am informed of a case where a married woman had been 
away from her husband for some time, following up race courses 
because she was interested in them. When she returned home to 
her husband, who was a Christian man, they, according to the ad- 
vice of St. Paul, — although he did not speak of, "after a season of 
horse racing return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your in- 
consistency" — complied with I. Cor. 7:5, with the result that the hus- 
band became infected with venereal disease. He went to a doctor 
and the doctor told him what his ailment was. The husband felt 
offended at that because he was a virtuous and true husband, and 
he had no suspicion that his wife was but the same. He went to 
a second doctor who told him the same thing that the first one 
told him. He then told the doctor that he must be mistaken, as 
he had had no sexual intercourse with any woman except his wife. 
The doctor told him that that may be true, nevertheless he had the 
disease he said he had. 

For the first time, now, the husband's suspicions were aroused, 
that his wife might not have been true to him in her absence, and 
he confronted her with that accusation, when she acknowledged her 
guilt. What the result was of such a confession of guilt, matters 
not, therefore, I will not say what it was. Now does any one for a 
moment believe that disease in the woman was caused only by a 



380 

"trangression of a law of mortal mind," and not by a transgression 
of the "divine law," of which St. Paul speaks in Rom. 1:26? Would 
licentious persons "invent" (140:75) venereal disease with which 
to torment themselves? Hardly. 

Well, then, is venereal disease not caused by a transgression of a 
divine law, despite the fact that C S. teaches to the contrary? a. f. y. 

But now, where did the husband sin, in doing just as St. Paul 
advised married people to do, after being "departed" from each other 
for a time" (I. Cor. 7:5)? If it was not because of sin in the hus- 
band, was it then because of "some form of false thinking" on his 
part, that he became infected with the disease? If so, then this is 
a warning to you husbands, whose wives go away to summer, and 
other resorts for the season, or who take in fairs, race courses, etc., 
and who are, therefore, separated from you "for a time," and who 
believe — think — that yonr wives are virtuous and true to you in 
their absence from you, that you do no "false thinking" of that 
kind, otherwise you may be rewarded with an infection of venereal 
disease, on their return home, for your "false thinking" that your 
wives were virtuous aad true to you while away from home. 

That case also shatters the teachings of C. S. that contagious 
diseases arise from "mental conditions," and that it is a "law of 
mortal mind that certain diseases should be regarded as contagious" 
(109:47). How did mortal mind come to regard certain diseases 
contagious unless it was the result of the multitudinous experiences 
of our ancestors? If mortal njind says that venereal disease is con- 
tagious do you not suppose that that belief arose from the fact that 
it was the experience of mortal minds in the past, just as it was 
the experience of the virtuous ar^d unsuspecting husband in the 
case just mentioned? 

It is certain that it did not "arise from mental conditions," be- 
cause the mind of the husband was free even from the suspicion 
that his wife was not virtuous, and surely if she thought .she would 
infect him with the disease she would not have let him had sexual 
intercourse with her, for she was quite a leader in society, and cer- 
tainly would not want to be publicly disgraced, as she finally was 
when the facts became publicly known. 

Must we not conclude, then, that diseases, which are contag- 
ious, were so from the first experience of the first ones who had 
contagious diseases, and that those diseases are the result of the 



381 

violation of a physical law of God, and of contact, and are not, 
therefore, due to mental conditions?" 

Do you not think C. S. will soon have to admit that my theory, 
of sin and disease, is right, which is that God governs the universe 
by law with penalties attached for their violations, and that man is 
a being of reason, free will and power to choose to do right or 
wrong and be rewarded or punished according to his observation or 
violation of law? Such a theory exonerates and vindicates God 
from all blame or charge of willing, decreeing, or sending any one 
evil, disease, sickness,- poverty, sufiPering, or misfortune. Man sim- 
ply goes into or after them himself, and God has nothing to do 
with them, only seeing to it that His immutable laws are ever opera- 
tive, and that a man shall reap what he, and his, sow. Is that not 
so? a. f. y. 

"Disease originates in mind, unconsciously to ourselves. It may 
be asked, how can this be possible? I was sick, and never thonght 
about it until I was suddenly prostrated. The answer is: the mor- 
tal mind [Which does not exist] of each individual extends beyond 
its range of consciousness; we are not aware of what may be going 
on outside the range of immediate consciousness; but we know this, 
that a process of 'latent thinking' is there going on" (137:467, Oct. 
1899). 

With that theory demolished, C. S. has no more props left and 
it will have to totter to its fall. We will now proceed to demolish 
this theory of "latent thinking" as being the origin of disease or 
sickness. 

What is "latent thinking" but the result of experience? Sup- 
posing Adam was the first man, and he ate a lot of green ajoples, 
which gave him the cholera morbus, just the same as eating a lot 
of green ajsples will give a boy cholera morbus, now, what "latent 
thinking," I ask, was there "beyond" his "range of consciousness" 
that caused Adam to have a "belief" of cholera morbus when his was 
the only "mortal mind" in existence? Or supposing Adam walked 
over rocks, stumbled, and fell on his knees and skinned them so they 
pained him, just the same as a boy or any one else now falling and 
skinning his knees, pain him, what "latent thinking" caused in Adam 
the "belief" of skinned knees and pain, if his was the only "mortal 
mind" in existence? 

What "latent thinking" existed that believed that one person 



382 

could talk with another hundreds of miles apart through the tele- 
phone, before the time of the discovery of the telephone? What 
"latent thinking" existed that caused the "belief" that messages could 
be flashed over a wire, before the telegraph was invented? What 
"latent thinking" existed that believed that messages could be trans- 
mitted without wire before wireless telegraphy was invented? 

In fact the "latent thinking" was skeptical on the belief of the 
possibility of transmitting messages without wire, for some daily pa- 
pers even oflPered to forfeit money to public institutions, — a few years 
before wireless telegraphy became a fact, — if any one could transmit 
messages between certain points by wireless telegraph. 

How often have you not picked up a stove lifter, believeing it 
to be cool, but which was so hot that you dropped it as quick as 
you could? Was that not directly contrary to the "latent think- 
ing" in those about you and of yourself? Was not the "latent 
thinking" in you a belief that the stove lifter was cold or you 
would not have picked it up? 

What "latent thinking" was "going on outside the range of 
immediate consciousness" of Noe (Gen. 9:21), — when he was made 
drunk the first time by drinking too much wine of whose strength 
he knew nothing,- — that created in him the "belief" of being drunk? 
How did "latent thinking" come to exist unless it was the result 
of the exjperiences of the first ones who noticed this and that 
eilect of different things? 

When Adam, or the first one who ever built a fire, what "lat- 
ent thinking" of "mortal minds" existed then to create the "belief 
in fire, a "vapid fury of mortal mind" (109:189), and made fire 
appear real to him? Does any one, who has not made the "intel- 
lect a dethroned king," believe that fire is but a creation of mortal 
mind and not a creation of God? If it is not a creation of God — 
but it is — then is not this "mortal mind" in C. S. as omnipotent 
a being as the orthodox devil, in whom the Christian Scientists do 
not believe? 

What has "latent thinking" to do with a fire that breaks out 
during the night and oftentimes burns to the ground churches, 
factories, stores, etc.? Has fire a "mortal mind" that it can feel 
that the consciousness oiitside of its immediate range has the 
belief that fire can originate from unknown causes and burn down 
this or that building? When a fire breaks out and burns down a 



383 

certain building, was the "latent thinking" "beyond its [fire] range 
of consciousness" all agreed that a church should burn instead of 
a factory, or a store should burn instead of a church, or a factory 
instead of a store? 

When I had that attack of inflammatory rheumatism, already 
mentioned, how was it that the "latent thinking," beyond my range 
of consciousness, should all have been agreed on it that I should 
have inflammatory rheumatism instead of small-pox or some other 
disease? 

Outside of my people, no one knew that I was going bare- 
footed while plowing, and they did not know then that rheuma- 
tism would be caused by walking barefooted on ground that was 
too cold, therefore, there was no "latent thinking" in them that 
could cause the "belief" in niy mind, mental consciousness, of 
rheumatism. Is not then the teaching of C S., that disease is 
mental, and is due to a "process of latent thinking" that "may be 
going on outside the range of immediate consciousness," one that 
is not tenable? 

It was by asking the question. What causes "latent thinking" 
but the experiences of the ones who suffered for the first time from 
that kind of disease and sickness which any one ever suffered in 
the world, that led me to the discovery that the teaching of C. S. 
on that subject were as false and groundless as is the belief in a 
personal devil being the cause of all our diseases and sicknesses, 
as Dr. Dowie teaches. 

No belief can gain credence unless it is as a result of the ex- 
periences of ourselves and our ancestors as far back as to the first 
person who ever came to hold a belief about anything as a result 
of experience. Is not, then, the last prop, on which C. S. rests her 
teachings as to the origin of disease and sickness, undermined, and 
that disease and sickness are due to a transgression of a physical or a . 
moral law of God? 

I will now give you some illustrations that it may be seen that 
transgressions of the physical laws of God causes many of the ills 
of woman. Look at figure 1 and see how the woman's waist is 
made out of proportion in size to the rest of her body, by the tight 
lacing of a corset Is that not a transgression of a physical law of 
God? The physical law of God— which may also be called the laws 
of nature — is here hindered by external forces from developing a 



/ 



384 



natural body such as Grod designed it should be. Now, what is 
often the result of such a distortion of the body? Here it is: 

"Corsets which give woman such an unnatural and stiff form 
have been the death of thousands. They crowd and cramp the vital 
organs above and below until they shut off the breath and the cir- 
culation of the blood. * * * Anteversions, retroversions, uteri 
lapsus and other weak and depressed conditions are very often caused 
by corsets which press the abdominal organs downward, and impede 
the free circulation of the blood to the different organs" (151:138> 




Fig. 1. 
174) . "The race is ruined for the sake of fashion. 'I cannot believe 
that women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as 
helpless as they are in child-bearing; but rather that both are the 
consequences of our many and various abuses of our constitutions 
and infractions of God's natural laws. Tight stays, tight garters, tight 
shoes, and similar concessions to the vagaries of feminine fashion, 
are accountable for many of the ills that afflict both mother and 
child.'" Frances— (152:148). 

From that it may be seen that "latent thinking," and a trans 



385 

gression of a law of mortal mind has nothing to do with the ills of 
woman that result from such tight lacing so as to make the shape 
of the body unnatural, not as God intended it should be. 

I will now give you illustrations of what fashionable dressing 
means in society and the moral and physical results which often 
accompany it. I want it understood that I do not make use of these 
illustrations in order to have good grounds for condemning such 
practices, and for preaching against them, but simply to prove my 
position as to the origin and cause of some diseases, and of a vindi- 
cation of God of the charge that He sends, decrees, or wills any one 
disease and sickness. 



a 



386 

Figure 2 of the two ladies in, what is called, "evening dress,' 
is taken from a Catholic paper, and is no doubt a pattern intended 
for those who have taken vows at Baptism, Confirmation, and Com- 
munion, of renouncing the world, [Fashion.] the flesh, and the devil. 




Fig. 2 — Evening Dress. 
Figure 3 of the two ladies in, what is called, "lovely evening'gowns, 



387 



is taken from a magazine. In both cuts there is considerable display 
of "illusion," — flesh, — which of course is not intended to charm the 
men with, but to — well I do not know what, of their less favored sis- 
ters who must hide under dry goods their less shapely forms. 

Now what is the effect of being dressed in decollete style of 
dress? Here it is: 

"The social tyranny which enslaves us all, but terrorizes women 




Fig. 3 — Two Lovely Evening Gowns. 
especially, is too pointed to need sharpening by any words of mine. 
* * * But there is something rotten in — * * * ^hen to be 
well-dressed is to be half -undressed, putting religion quite out of 
mind, and putting science to its trumps in trying to cure pneumonia. 
Dress-reform, for one thing cannot begin too soon for morals or for 
health" (153:30). 

Those are the words of a physician. 



388 

"Dress that fashion decrees often violates common sense and 
sometimes common decency. Many seem to believe in the old say- 
ing, 'Out of the fashion, out of the world,' [A thing a good Chris- 
tian young woman once told me.] and as a result of obeying this rule 
they are choked by high collars, or have their breath squeezed out 
of them by clothing that Fashion says should be skin tight * * * 
Women are injured more by the desire to be in fashion than men. 
Lora — " (38:506, June 5, 1901). "Our mother was dying of consump- 
tion; she was only thirty -five years old. * * * It was at a ball 
that she caught the cold that produced the inflammation of the lungs 
which brought her to the grave" (154:6, 12). 

Between pages 12 and 13 of the book from which the last quo- 
tation is made, is a separate leaf on which is a i:)icture of the mother, 
who died so young, showing her in decollete dress. 

"Mrs. is dead at her home * * * as a result of cold 

which she contracted at the inaugural ball two weeks ago" (57:March 
18, 1901). 

It does not say that she was in decollete attire, but we must in- 
fer that she was when she attended such an important function as 
a President's inaugural ball. 

There is no question but that the baring of the chest has a 
deleterious effect on the health of a woman, especially so when danc- 
ing. Dancing will warm up a person and when the chest is bare, 
it is exposed more or less to currents or drafts of cool air which will 
chill the blood and cause its congestion, resulting often, in time, in 
tuberculosis, consumption, or some other severe illness. Now, can it 
be said that the ills which result from tight lacing, and the baring 
of the arms and shoulders are the result of a transgression of a law 
of mortal mind, or are the result of "latent thinking," or are the re- 
sult of sin? 

There is no question about it that many women attire them- 
selves in decollette dress who think of no wrong in it — therefore it 
cannot be regarded as a sin — but simply do so for want of think- 
ing, just as a woman says: 

"And the same ['a good way beyond the simply decorous'] 
may be said of the height of the corsage, * * * for some 
women will unfortunately always be found, who are sufficiently lost 
to modesty as to be willing to attract by the displaying of them- 
selves; and there are others who thoughtlessly imitate them. 



389 

because they will not be outdone; and thus a public fashion is 
formed. * * * Once for all, exposure is always wrong; what- 
ever be the fashion, it is a Christian woman's duty to perceive 
when indecency comes in, and to protest against it by her own 
example and influence, though not by censoriousness" (156:110, 
111). 

What effect on morals decoUette dressing, and _dancing in such 
attire, has, I do not know, for I was never, what is called, in soci- 
ety, nor did I ever learn to dance the "highly indecent, impure, 
obscene" round dances, — for which the bishop "was so good as to 
give permission" to dance them, because the money derived from 
them went into the treasury of the Church, — because in the coun- 
try, in my young days, it was almost altogether square dancing, or 
quadrilles, and the only round dancing which I did then was 
around a ten or twenty acre field, behind a plow, instead of around 
in a ball room on a waxed floor. 

However, I will state what others say about dancing in decollete 
dress, and about that style of a dress. 

This is what an ex-dancing master, in a large city, has to say 
about round dancing in decollete dress: "To be sure, one not ac- 
customed to such scenes would consider them [Ladies at the ball] 
anything but respectably dressed, with their nude arms, neck and 
partially exposed breast, and tightly {clinging skirts which more 
than suggest the contour of body and limb. 

But society and fashion demand such dress; vile men demand 
it: for them the waltz would be spoiled of half its pleasure if the 
woman was not as nearly nude as she dare be" (178:18). 

I have heard society men say that, unless a man has no pas- 
sion, to come in close range of a woman in decollete attire it is 
more or less apt, at first, to arouse in them the physical passion. 
That probably is true, if the couples are in the position of those 
in figure 4, styled "In Society," where the man seems to be look- 
ing at the "foot hills," as an editor east of the Kocky Mountains 
calls them, where a woman cuts her dress so low as to show them. 
That cut is taken, as it is, from a Sunday morning's paper. 

Here is some more. "Their enjoyment [at the ball] consists 
in this, — that the women and young girls, having bared their necks 
and arms * * * place themselves in a situation in which no 
uncorrupted woman or maiden would care to display herself to a 



390 



man, on any consideration in ,the world; and in this half -naked 
condition, with their uncovered bosoms exposed to view, with arms 
bare to the shoulders, * * * under the most brilliant light, 
women and maidens, whose chief virtue always has been modesty, 
exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who are also clad 

oooooooocoooooog^ 




Fig. 4. 
in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of madden- 
ing music, they embrace and whirl" (156:153). [And that, too, in 
Russia, I suppose.] 



391 

"Chrysostom telletli them downright, 'though they say nothing 
with their mouths, they speak in their gait, they speak with their 
eyes, they speak in the carriage of their bodies.' And what shall 
we say otherwise of that baring of their necks, shoulders, naked 
breasts, arms and wrists, to what end are they but only to tempt 
men to lust" (157:70, Vol. 3). "The reckless display of personal 
charms by the woman of fashion — her double-entendre decollete — is 
not calculated to promote elevation of thought or purity of action" 

(14:270, Vol. 1). "■ sefeming as unconcerned as a society belle 

at opera or ball with half her back exposed, her bust ready to spill 
out of hef corsage if she chance to stoop" (Ibid 149). "That Miss 
Gotrocks over there is just coming out." "Yes," answered Travers, 
eyeing her evening gown, "don't you think she's out far enough, 
already ?" 

"Daughter — Papa, what do you think of my coming-out gown? 
Papa — Well, my dear, I don't see how you could very well come 
out of it any farther." 

Now, all that may be true or not, but to me it seems that there 
are only three reasons why a woman would wear decollete gowns. 
One is, on account of thoughtlessness, not thinking how far-reaching 
the influence is on morals and health to expose so much illusion" 
— flesh. Another reason is, that a well-formed woman likes to arouse 
the envy of her less favored sisters, — who must wear covering so as 
to hide their poorly developed neck, arms, and shoulders, — by mak- 
ing a display of her fully developed neck, arms and shoulders. 
Whether that is right or not, I will let the Christian woman answer 
for herself. The third reason is, that a woman has discovered that 
she cannot attract the men with her mind qualities and amiable 
disposition, and must, therefore, try to charm them with the physical, 
just like Darwin's male apes acquired "beards as an ornament to 
charm or excite the opposite sex" (88:605). 

Whether that is a right or a wrong way to charm the men I 
will, also, let the Christian woman answer for herself. I am not a 
preacher and will, therefore not say anything for or against the 
fashion of decollete dress. But it seems to me that a thinking, 
good, and kind woman would not do anything that would elicit the 
sentiments expressed by the different writers whom I have quoted 
on the subject, be it serious, condemnatory, or humorous. Aside 
from its moral effects and influence, that of health alone ought to 



392 

be weighty enough of a consideration to cause a woman to think 
seriously about it before donning decollete attire. 

We have now seen what is the cause or origin of many of the 
ills women are heir to. Have women not a reason, free-will and power 
to do as they choose to do? If they have, — and they have,^then 
is it not because they will practice those things, such as tight lacing, 
and the baring of that part of the body which contains the organs 
that are most easily affected by exposure, causing them ills, and that 
God has nothing to do with willing, decreeing, or sending them the 
ills which they bring on themselves by transgressing the physical 
law of God? And is it not plain that "mental conditions," or "false 
thinking," or "latent thinking" has nothing to do with it? 

If you put a dent in a lead pipe does that not interfere with a 
full flow of water through it? If then a body is laced so tight so 
as to interfere with a free circulation of the blood — -the veins being, 
as it were, dented — and disease results, is it not plain that no "law of 
mortal mind," no "mental conditions," no "false thinking," no "latent 
thinking," and no sin, had anything to do with this or that woman's 
illness, but that it was due to the transgression of a physical law 
of God, which requires free, unimpeded, unhindered, action? 

If diseases, desires, and appetites are due to a law of mortal 
mind, or to false thinking, or to latent thinking, or to sin, why was 
it that I was made deathly sick, so that I vomited up my dinner I had 
just eaten, when I took my first and only chew of tobacco in my life, 
while some it made only slightly sick when they took their first 
chew of tobacco, and some it did not make sick at all? I have heard 
men say that they never felt the least indisposed when they took 
their first chew of tobacco. How will C. S. account for such diamet- 
rically opposite results by its law of mortal mind, or latent thinking, 
or mental conditions, if man has no individual "mind of his own" 
(137:397, Sept. 1899)? 

C. S. claims that it destroys the desire for tobacco, and gives 
"strength to the weakness of mortal mind" (109:405) [Which does 
not exist.] to destroy the appetite for tobacco. I know of cases 
where men claimed that they had destroyed, or rather, overcome, the 
appetite for tobacco at a "holiness meeting," and at the time that I 
was told it, they had had no more desire for tobacco after that, al- 
though it was five years after they had been freed from the desire, 
when I was told of it. I also know of cases where Christian Scien- 



393 

lists, — or at least they are strong sympathizers of C. S., as it is 
called, — who claimed they were healed in C. S. of physical ailments, 
for which they had drugged themselves for many years, but from 
which they received no relief until they came into C. S. [Which 
stopped the drugging, and which was all that was needed to start 
them towards becoming healed in from a few weeks to over "five 
years" (187:802, Feby. 1899).] but who are seldom seen without 
smoking a cigar. Now, if there is anything in C. S., why were they 
healed of that only which needed only the stopping of drugs in 
order to be healed, and not of the appetite for tobacco? 

One time one of those who claimed he was healed of physical 
ills, in C. S., but who was not healed of the tobacco habit, said to 
me that the principles of C. S. may be true or not, but it gave 
him results, and it was results that he was after, therefore, he be- 
lieved in it. Now, if the application of the principles of 0. S. 
[The principal one being the stopping the drugging the system with 
poisonous matter such as medicines are more or less] healed him of 
physical ills then why did he not apply them to destroying the ap 
petite for tobacco? 

To be freed from the appetite for tobacco, is that not a "'result" 
that one should desire, when one beholds its digusting, nauseating, 
and filthy nature? Did you never notice what a filth there is in 
spittoons with tobacco spit and quids and cigar stumps in places 
where one would think there was too much culture and refinement 
for the existence of such filth? 

When I see a married man who chews and smokes, I often 
wonder if, when he proposed to his wife, he did not say to her: 

"Darling do you think you love me enough to be willing to 
clean my spittoon daily, until death do us part?" 

Then think of a man, who defiles himself with the filthy, stink- 
ing add sickening odor of tobacco, permeating his clothes, bed and 
the house with its odor, giving his wife a "Shrewsbury clock" kiss. 
No wonder then if the wife, of a delicately refined nature, turns 
from such proffered caresses and appears "cool" to her husband, 
and he sues for divorce on thh ground that she repulsed his 
caresses. 

Well, then, if such are some of the effects of the use and 
appetite for tobacco, not taking into consideration the useless 
expense, and the many fires that can be attributed to the use of 



394 

tobacco, would it not be a "result" to be desired, to be freed from 
the use of tobacco':" If so; then why did not C S. effect that 
■'result," as it did the others, for which it is given credit? Does it 
not prove that will-power has more to do with it than has the ap- 
plication of the principles of C. S? 

It is will-power that makes a convert to a different belief a more 
exemplary and practical member than one brought np in the belief, 
and for this reason: when one makes a change in beliefs one makes 
the effort — exercise of will 'power — to be better than formerly, in 
order to make it appear that the new belief has an influence for 
better, and that one did not err in judgement and discernment in 
making the change, thereby escaping the taunts that might other- 
wise be thrown at one. For were one not better in the new belief 
than when in the old one, one might be taunted with something 
like this: 

"What did you gain by making a change in beliefs, if the new 
belief is the true one and the old one was false, erroneous and you 
are no better now than you were before?" 

It is that characteristic, — pride, in one sense of the word, to 
show that one's judgment and discernment was right, — that influ- 
ences those in C. S., as well as others who make changes in beliefs, 
and, makes them, as a rule, better in every way than they were in 
their old beliefs. And that is why, where such things are required, 
— as the non-use of liquor and tobacco, — in a new belief, that one 
gives them up through the exercise of will-power, even though it 
is claimed that it was through the application of the principles in 
the new belief. I know that to be facts from my own experience 
and from observation. 

I know of cases where Christian Scientists, when among them- 
selves, could get along no better than persons of different beliefs 
could, yet when out amongst others, made it appear that there was 
no such thing as discord, and that all was harmony. 

After I had taken treatment about two weeks, from a certain 
healer, I met one who had been urging me, for some time, to try 
C. S., who said to me: "I still see that you do not care to get rid 

of that kink in the back." I said, "don't I? Just ask [The 

healer's name] if I do not care to get rid of that 'kink in the back?' " 
After I had said that, that person said to me: "You can go to 
till doom's day and it will do you no good, for is in 



395 

error." That was the first bomb that was thrown into the cami) of 
my belief that all was harmony in C. S., for I was afterwards told 
of a lot of things that existed in the inner circles of C. S. that no 
outsider could possibly have known who was not suj)posed to be in 
sympathy with C. S. 

The reason that certain healer could do me no good was, — 
according to this person who told me of it, — that that healer be- 
longed to a faction of Christian Scientists who had a certain C. S. 
D. [Which means, I believe, a Christian Scientist who was a per- 
sonal student of Mrs. Eddy, at the Massachusetts Metaphysical 
College, when it was first oldened] for their leader, while this person, 
of whom I am speaking, was a sympathizer of another C. S. D., and 
therefore belonged to another faction of Christian Scientists. Well, 
there was trouble — that is, discord, which seems to be the history 
of C. S. in nearly every place of which I have heard of their his- 
tory — between the different factions, of which it is not necessary to 
give the details thereof, and that was why, if one went to a healer 
of one faction those of another would speak disparagingly of their 
power to heal, and vice versa. 

And there were some Christian Scientists who did not affiliate 
with any of the three factions, — for there were three C. S. D.s and 
each one's students formed a separate faction — that those outside of 
the factions, who knew of the "condition of the field," as they called 
it, said that the mental atmosphere of the Christian Scientists was 
such at that time, in that city, that they could do me no good, and 
that I had better get a healer from outside the city. This I did, 
and had a healer come over fifty miles, specially, to treat me, even 
telegraphing for the healer to come, when my physical powers, 
after over eight months in C. S., were so "enhanced," by the heal- 
ers of that city, that I could not walk three blocks to a street car 
to take me home. 

Do you see how determined I was to uphold my pride, — that I 
had not made a fool of myself in letting C. S. "enhance" my phys- 
ical powers, (Oh, I forgot, I should have reversed the testimony of 
the "deceitful senses," when it would have read "lessen," which it 
did,) going even to the expense of having a healer come miles to 
treat me, hoping that C. S. would yet triumph and vindicate my 
"wisdom" in consenting to investigate it after reading that Tract, 
"Is Your Prayer Answered?" from which I have already quoted. 



396 

But my "kink in the back," which finally affected the sciatic 
nerves and caused my final breakdown, and the stiffening of the 
hip joints, was a thing that would not heal of itself, therefore, C. 
S. could not heal it. 

And that there was something in that "kink in the back," which 
was not caused by "mental conditions," nor a "form of false think- 
ing," nor by "latent thinking," nor by sin I was fully convinced of 
later. It was by a missing the footing of a street car whose high 
rate of speed — the gripman having paid no attention to my signal 
to come to a stop, not even slacking the speed of his train — threw 
me down on all fours with such force that I received such a shock 
of pain in my spine that I felt the experience of "seeing stars" 
with my eyes closed, that gave me the kink in the back. 

After I had been at home here for some time and had tried 
materia medica until I saw that if I did not give it up it would have 
buried its mistake within thirty days, and had, therefore, given it 
up, I saw an advertisement of a doctor who was the representative 
of a new school of healing' who advertised himself as a "Physiologi- 
cal Practitioner," giving a brief exposition of his method of healing, 
and stating that consultation was free. As I had not sufiiciently 
recovered myself yet from inateria medica'' s effort to bury its mis- 
take, I was not able to go to the doctor's office, although I was no 
longer, what might be called, bedfast, and, therefore, wrote him a let- 
ter to come to see me if he could, stating that the primary cause of 
my ailment was rhevimatism, but what it was now I did not know. 

In due time he called to see me, making an examination, and 
when he got to the region of the spine in which was that "kink," 
he asked me whether I had ever had a fall. I said to hira, Why, 
what makes you think so? "Well," he said, "There are indications 
here" — that is, where he had his hand on the spine — "that you have 
had a fall of some kind or other." I said to him, Might not that 
condition, or whatever it is, have been caused by ossification, such 
as is often the result of rheumatism? He said, no; and that the 
indications were quite pronounced that I had had a fall. I said to 
him, Are you positive that you might not be mistaken in the indi- 
cations, and that the condition is not due to ossification ? He then 
made another thorough examination and said that he was jjositive 
I had had a fall once of some kind. I then told him of that street 
car mishap, already mentioned. 



397 

As he was a stranger to me, and I not having mentioned that 
street car mishap to any one yet, for I did not know up to that time 
that it was the primary cause of my present affliction — stiff hip 
joints — he certainly could not have come to his conclusion by guess- 
work that I had had a fall, and he must, therefore, have found a dis- 
location, or whatever it was, that would require more than suggestion 
or Mind to adjust and heal it, if he could know of it without being 
told about it. And as the age was not advanced enough yet to ad- 
mit "the efficacy and supremacy of Mind," 0. S. failed to "demon- 
strate" over it, just like it fails to "demonstrate" over the "belief" 
that one has not yet paid a bill for treating consumption, and, there- 
fore, sends the bill to the deceased's estate for collection, because 
the bill is a reality, even though "lungs never sustained our Life, " 
which makes consumption an unreality, while it makes the bill for 
treating an unreality, a reality. That is pretty good logic is it not 
— for C. S. so it can acquire "comfortable fortunes" (124:VII.) ? a. f. y. 

It may be seen then that the position of C. S. on the origin 
of diseases is not a tenable one, according to the illustrations and 
the experiences of myself, as cited in this chapter, and that my 
theory is the true one. 

I do not want you women to think that you are the only ones 
who have ailments, and that the men have none, because I used 
the subject of corsets and decollete gowns to prove that my theory, 
namely, the transgression of a physical law of God, is the cause or 
origin of many diseases which C. S. claims are caused by "mental 
conditions," "false thinking," "latent thinking," or by sin, etc. 

The reason that I used the illustrations which I did, is, be- 
cause those are subjects about which there can be no speculation, 
for they are to be verified by observations about which there can 
be no guesswork. They are things which may be seen by any ob- 
servant person, and are attested to by doctors and women them- 
selves, as may be seen from the writings which I quoted in this 
chapter on the subjects. Therefore, I do not claim that all women 
are imitators of the extremes of fashion and become ill only through 
that way. But there are enough of them, however, to use only as 
subjects with which to demolish the teachings of C. S., on the origin 
of disease, and if 0. S. can not stand the test of the "arms of the 
intellect" on the origin of some diseases on those subjects, then it 
certainly can not on other subjects which might be brought in, but 



398 

which I will not bring in, because I feel satisfied that to those 
with whom the intellect is not a dethroned king, it has been made 
plainly apparent that the position of C. S. on the cause or origin 
of disease and sickness is wrong, erroneous, and absurd. Therefore 
I will not devote any more time and space to it. 

In the next chapter we will review a few of the attempts that 
have been made by others to undermine C. S., but which, it seems, 
had no more effect on it than have been the attempts of those who 
sought to destroy the Catholic Church. Both seem to thrive as 
though no one had- attempted to destroy them, but if either can 
withstand successfully the onslaughts of the "arms of the intellect," 
as I have used them in this book against them, then we have, 
indeed, two institutions, almost diametrically opposed to each other, 
which can claim, as they do, that they are built on the Rock — 
Christ. 

If I have not succeeded in undermining some of the teachings 
of the Catholic Church, then I can hardly- expect to undermine some 
of the teachings of the C. S. Church. But if I have succeded in 
the former, then I should also succeed in the latter, for I used the 
same method of warfare, that is, the "arms of the intellect," against 
both. I trust, however, that I have and will succeed, and that the 
result will be a union of the Churches, so that there will be but 
One Church, as there is but One God, with no three co-etemal, 
co-equal, and co-substantial Divine Persons. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE — Continued. 

In the preceeding chapters we saw how God — Spirit, — and 
matter may both be real; that our five senses are not deceitful 
when used within the scope which is of use to us, and that their 
testimony, within that scope, is to be relied upon, and that 
disease and sickness are also real and are the result or effect of a 
violation of a physical or a moral law of Grod. And that He does 
not send, will or decree that anyone should be thus afflicted. 

We saw that man has a mind of his own, and that he has been 
endowed with the faculty of reason, free-will, will-power, and power 
to do as he chooses to do; that if he suffers from a disease or a 
sickness that it is the result of his own, — or of his, bound by the 
ties of the flesh — deed, and that he will reap what he, or his sow. 
That position exonerates or vindicates God from all blame, and 
shows the nobility and responsibility of man. 

We saw that matter is passive and that man is active, and that 
it depends on how he uses it that matter can cause good or evil 
and that one is just as real as the other. We have seen where 
real diseases have been healed in C. S. for which materia medica 
could do nothing, — except to make worse, — and that the healing 
was not due to the application of the principles of C. S., except it 
be that of stopping the drugging of the system with drugs that are 
more or less poisonous, and which hinder the free operation of the 
healing power and recuperative energy within each individual, We 
saw that one of the basic principles of C. S. is suggestion, despite 
its claims to the contrary. 

We saw that its healings are not according to Christ and the 
Apostles, who enjoined faith on the part of their patients, while 
C. S. does not require it, claiming that it can heal without it 
(124:33). 

The "Reformed" C. S. likewise claims it can heal where one 
does not believe. 

"Something may depend upon the condition cf the mind of 



400 

the patient. I do not mean to say by this that it is at all neces- 
sary for one to believe before he is healed, because such a religion 
as that would be absurd" (148:31). 

We saw that there are laws of different degree, the one able 
to overcome the other. And we also saw where C. S. is contradic- 
tory. 

That C. S. is contradictory I can prove from fresh material 
that came into my hands lately. It is where a Christian Scientist 
— unless he has become a backslider, for I heard him more than 
once testify in experience meetings, how he was healed in C. S., 
and he was a member of the Church at the time, — has been made 
"Chairman of the Box Committee" of an entertainment that is to 
be repeated in order to allow the ladies to attend it, they having 
been barred from the first one, because there would not have been 
room enough for them, and the visiting men who attended a certain 
convention in that city where this entertainment took place. 

Here is what the Christian Scientist said: 

"To mothers, wives and sweethearts of — . A performance 

was given by the world-renowned minstrels last month. As 

thousand males wanted to attend this entertainment, the ladies 
were excluded on account of lack of space. As I happened to be 

one of the thousand that attended, and as the greatness of this 

entertainment dawned upo7i me, [all italics are mine], I thought 
that a crime had been perpetrated in our beloved city by the ex- 
clusion of our mothers, [of which there will be no more when the 
"advancing age" becomes so "spiritual" that husbands and wives 
can live under the same roof in the relation of brother and sister] 
wives and sweethearts from this meritorioiii enter taininent, probably 
one of the most perfect minstrel performances ever given on earth. 
("This may be a broad statement, but come and see [with your "de- 
ceitful senses"] whether I am correct th.") After witness- 
ing [with "deceitful senses"] this entertainment I was convinced 
[yet man has no "individual mind of his own"] that it was abso- 
lutely necessary to have it repeated and allow the ladies to attend." 

Is it not surprising how much contradiction of C. S. there is 
in that little quotation? If our physical senses of seeing and hear- 
ing are "deceitful," as C. S. teaches, then how can they judge an 
entertainment and speak of it as "the greatness" of it which "dawned 
upon me," and as a "meritorious entertainment," and especially so, 



401 

if man "has no individual mind of his own," and the "so-called 
pleasures and pains of sense" are "nothingness" (109:381) nothing? 
Would you speak of nothing as "greatness" that "dawned" upon 
you, and as "meritorious"? If not, then is C. S. not contradictory, 
and, if its followers believe in it, are they not inconsistent? a. f. y. 

What overrides common-sense, experience, and intellect, and 
misleads people into believing in the fundamental principles and 
teachings of C. S. is this: 

"If mathematics presents a thousand different examples of one 
principle, the proving of one example authenticates all the others. 
A simple statement of Christian Science, if demonstrated by heal- ,, 

ing, contains the proof of all here said of it. If one of the state- I 

ments in this book is true, every one must be true, for not one 
departs from its system and rule" (109:539). , 

Let us sQe whether "a simple statement of C S., if demonstrated | 

by healing," proves that the statements of C S. are true. 

Because Dr. Dowie heals people, is that a demonstration that 
proves that his statement is true that "every kind of sickness, 
and every kind of disease * * * is the work of the devil" 
(106:15)? 

What did the devil have to do with that street car mishap of 
mine? If the devil was really the cause of it, then I would have 
good grounds for denouncing and impeaching Grod, for letting such 
a being as a devil loose among His children who causes us so much 
woe and suffering, if He, by removing the devil, could save His 
children from all such evils. What human father would let a lion 
loose among his children, even if they were supplied with knives, 
guns and bayonets to defend themselves with against the lion? The 
lion would in that case play about as great a havoc among the 
children as the orthodox devil does among God's children, if it is 
true that only eight out of ninety thousand are saved, and all the rest 
are "condemned to eternal torments" (7:337), despite the fact that 
"God gives to every man sufficient grace to resist" (7:337) the devil, 
as a missionary said in answer to the question, in the question box 
at a mission to non-Catholics, "Why does not a God destroy the devil 
if He is omnipotent" (19:Feb. 3, 1903)? 

Because some Catholics were healed through the intercession 
of the Blessed Virgin, as they believed they were — although I know 
of no one personally who ever was healed through the intercession 



402 

of the Blessed Virgin or of the Saints — is that a demonstration 
which proves that the statement or the teaching of the Church is 
true that the Blessed Virgin intercedes for us and has us in her arms 
from our birth, when, as I have shown elsewhere by mathematics, 
—and mathematics is from God — that if she were to do for us what 
the Church claims she does she would have to attend to over 46,000 
petitions at once — simultaneously — every second of time from one 
end of the year to another?- Now we know such a thing is utterly 
impossible to any being, excepting God almighty. 

If, then, the healings which it is claimed take place — which, if 
they do, are on the same principle as that of C. S., that is, stop- 
ping the medicines, so as to give the power within each individual, 
that makes for healing, a chance to exert itself, or else are merely 
coincidences — in Dowieism and Catholicism do not prove that their 
teachings are all true, then, may not the same rule apply to C. S.? 
And because persons were healed of real diseases in C. S , in from 
a few days to over five years, and which was due to the stopping 
of drugging the system, and to suggestion, as I have proved is the 
case from its crwn writings, and from my own experience, do those 
"demonstrations" prove that every statement in S. and H. is true 
such as God is all and there is nothing for Him to enter but Him- 
self [Which would be like a stocking turning itself outside in, which 
would be entering itself, would it not? And I suppose the longer 
the stocking the more "entering" itself it could do]; that our senses 
are deceitful, etc.? 

How can I trust the testimony of my eyes in reading S. and 
H., and other C. S. literature when I have but one pair of eyes 
and they are deceitful, as C. S. attempts to prove they are, because 
when I look at the horizon, "sky and tree-tops apparently join 
hands," which we know they do not? 

The fact is our senses are not deceitful, and their testimony is 
true, when the senses are used within the scope of usefulness to 
us. Man has nothing to do with the phenomena of the universe, 
such as seeing to it that sky and tree-tops do not join hands, or 
that clouds and ocean do not "meet and mingle," therefore they do 
not come within his scope of usefulness and regulation, and his 
sense of sight in that case makes no difference to him whether they 
are trustworthy or not, but when it comes to matters of usefulness 
and regulation within his scope the senses are, and must be, not 



403 

deceitful, and to say that they are is a blasphemy, is it not? a. f. y. 

What would you think of a man who gave his son a lot of tools 
to work with, to build a house, for instance, and the tools were de- 
ceitful? The level instead of being level when it showed it was 
level, was one-sided; the rule instead of being a foot, measured eleven 
inches; the saw that should be straight would be twisted enough so 
that he could not possibly saw straight with it, etc., and would put 
certain materials before him, just the proper amount, no more and no 
less, that would build the house of which he also gave a plan and 
specifications? Would you not say such a man was mean, contempt- 
ible, especially so if he should punish his son for having made a 
failure of building the house the way he wanted it built? 

The same could be said of God if He gave us deceitful senses 
— tools, with which to build our characters. Are not our senses, in 
one sense of the word, the door to our souls? How could the soul, 
[Of course, C. S. denies that there is such a thing as a "finite soul 
or spirit" (109:462), but then that does not make it so, because C. 
S. is like a train that has been switched onto the wrong track, and 
the further it goes the further away does it get from its objective 
point — the truth.] be touched with the spirit of the Gospel if it had 
no senses with which to read it or hear it? How could the troubled 
soul be soothed with the sweet strains of music if it had no sense 
of hearing? How could one breathe "aloud his rapture" on behold- 
ing Niagara, if one had no sense of sight? or if when the testimony 
of the senses is only an "illusion" (109:16)? 

If then the senses of seeing and hearing are true, and not de- 
ceitful, then the sense of feeling must likewise be true, and when it 
tells us then that we suflPer from the pains of neuralgia, rheumatism, 
indigestion, or any other disease or sickness, its testimony is true, 
and if disease and sickness are true then they are real, and if real 
then another statement of C. S. is not true, notwithstanding the fact 
that it has made a "demonstration" by healing. Is that not so? 
a. f. y. 

As, no doubt, all the cardinal principles of C. S. have been un- 
dermined now, the subject might be dropped without any further 
investigation and consideration, but as a number of others have 
attacked it without success, I believe it^best^to'give the subject some 
more attention. Nothing like doing a thing thoroughly, is the axiom 



404 

of success, and that is why I will devote more time and space to the 
subject. 

In some of the C. S. literature the following may be found: 

'•The author of the Christian Science text-book takes no patients, 
does not consult on disease, nor read letters referring to these sub- 
jects" (58:). "Note — The author takes no patients, and declines 
medical consultation" (109:XII). "This volume [Science and 
Health] contains the complete Science of Mind-healing" (109:40). 
"No human pen or tongue taught me the Science contained in this 
book, Science and Health" (109:4). "Even the Scriptures gave no 
direct interpretation of the Scientific basis for demonstrating the 
Spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly Father saw fit, 
through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to un- 
lock this 'mystery of Grodliness' " (134:45). "While revising 'Science 
and Health [Must be revising Grod.] with key to the Scriptures,' 
she adds, the light and might of the Divine concurrence of the 
Spirit and the Word appeared" (137:741, Feby. 1899). 

If the author of 0. S. "takes no patients and declines medical 
consultation," and does not "read letters referring to those subjects," 
is she thereby obeying the Master when it distinctly says in Luke 
9:2, "And he sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God, and 
to heal the sick"? What more is she doing than the orthodox 
ministers who preach only, and do not heal the sick? If S. and 
H. contains the complete Science of mind healing," and no "human 
pen or tongue taught * * * the Science contained in" it, then 
what more has God to reveal to us? Have we not already the word 
of God that pertains to the spiritual? And if our Heavenly Father 
saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures in S. and H. to unlock 
this "mystery of godliness," that is, the "interpretation of the 
Scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual principle of healing," 
then, what more is there for Him to communicate to us? Did 
Jesus and the Apostles refuse to heal at any time while they were 
giving their hearers the "Bread of Life," the Gospel? 

If "no human pen or tongue taught" the Science contained in 
S. and H. then it must have been God, must it not? And if so, 
does God have to revise Himself because S. and H. is revised? 

I have read different editions of S. and H. and the signification 
of the Lord's Prayer was different in each of them. I will give 
two of them. One from the fourteenth edition, and the other from 



405 

the 123d edition, and will then let you a. f. y. whether or not God 
had anything to do with teaching it. 

In the 14th edition the Lord's Prayer is first given in full, and 
then follows this: 

"The following is the spiritual signification of the Lord's Prayer: — 

1. Principle, eternal and harmonious, 

2. Nameless and adorable Intelligence, 

3. Thou art ever present and supreme. 

4. And when this supremacy of Spirit shall appear. 

The dream of matter will disappear. 

5. Give us the understanding of Truth and Love, 

6. And loving we shall learn God, 

And Truth will destroy all error. 

7. And lead us unto the Life that is Soul, and deliver us from 
the errors of sense, sin, sickness, and death, 

8. For God is Life, Truth and Love for ever" (59:130). 

The following is from the 123d edition, and is twelve years later 
than the other edition, and in this she does not seem to be so pos- 
itive about its meaning as in the other where she says: "The fol- 
lowing is the sjiiritual signification of the Lord 's Prayer," while in 
this she says: "Here let me give what I ttnderstand to he [Italics 
are mine] the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer: 
Our Father which art in Heaven, 

0^lr Father and Mother God^ all-harmonious^ 
[In the other it was, "Principle, eternal and harmonious."] 
Hallowed be Thy name. 

Adorable One. 
Thy Kingdom come. 

Ihy kingdom is come. 

God is ever present and omnipotent. 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. 

Enable us to know.^ — as in Heaven so on earth, — God is 
All in all.'' 
[In the other, "And when this supremacy of Spirit shall appear, 
the dream of matter will disappear."] 
Give us this day our daily bread; 

Give us grace for to-day; feed thou the famished affections^ 
[In the other, "Give us the understanding of Truth and Love."] 



406 

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 
And divine Love is reflected in love; 
[In the other, "And loving we shall learn God, and Truth will de- 
stroy all error."] 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; 

And leaveth us not in temptation^ hut deliveretJi us from 
evil, — sin, disease and death. [Of which "God knows 
no such thing" (140:1), yet ask Him to deliver us from it.] 

For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory for- 
ever. 

F'or God is omnipresent Good, Substance, Life Truth, 
Love'' (109:322.) 
[In the other, "For God is Life, Truth, and love for ever," leaving 
us in doubt now whether He is "forever" or not.] 

Does the foregoing appear to you that the same intelligence 
dictated both interpretations of the Lord's Prayer? Yet "in de- 
fending Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, in the January, 1901, 
Journal, page 597, says: 'It was not myself, but the divine power 
of Truth and Love, infinitely above me, which dictated Science and 
Health, with Key to the Scriptures'" (138:11). It seems the C. S. 
God is as changeable, if He "dictated Science and Health," as is 
the orthodox God who, at one time, commanded that both the 
adulterer and adulteress, be put to death" (20:10); at another time 
they were "punished by a penance of twenty years" (5:553), and 
now, "on account of the weakness of the faithful, the Church [God's 
oracle] is lenient" (5:553) and grant's a full remission of punish- 
ment by granting one a plenary indulgence, which may be gained 
in various ways, as already stated in another chapter. 

In the 14th edition of S. and H. what is called the "Key to 
the Scriptures," is called the "Glossary" in the 123d edition, and 
the contents of the "Key to the Scriptures" in the 123d edition, 
and which is next to the "Glossary" in the back of that book, is 
in Volume 2, 14th edition, in the chapter of "Creation" and is spread 
from pages 61 to 105. In the 36th edition of S. and H. is a chap- 
ter entitled "Wayside Hints," which is left out of the 123d edition 
and which was then given to the world with the rest in the 36th 
edition, "as of God's authorship" (146:13). So, God has been re- 
vising Himself from time to time. 

In 1899 the "Message to the Mother Church," in June of that 



407 

year, was published in the C. S. Journal, so that those who were 
subscribers to the Journal got the "Message" without extra charge. 
But the "Message" for June, 1901, was printed in pamphlet form 
and sold for fifty cents each. Probably Grod saw that Christian 
Scientists were getting too much spiritual food for the money, so 
He, no doubt, "impelled" His "scribe under orders * * * trans- 
cribing what God indites" (124:311),— as He "impelled" her to set 
a price of "three hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in one 
course of lessons at my college — a startling sum for tuition lasting 
barely three weeks" (134:61), — not to publish it in the 0. S. Jour- 
nal, but have it printed in pamphlet form and sell it at fifty cents 
each. 

Probably that is the reason "The author takes no patients, and 
declines medical consultation," because in having God to "impel" 
her to charge fifty cents for "transcribing what God indites," she 
can acquire a more "comfortable fortune" (124: VII.) than by healing. 
The pamphlet containing the "Message," which retails at fifty cents 
each, is sold to the trade at $4.50 per dozen (58:160, Nov. 6, 1902). 
As I have bought pamphlets with more than twice as much read- 
ing matter in them — the substance of which was fully the equal to 
that of the "Message" — as in the Message, for ten and fifteen cents, 
we will say, then, that the pamphlets cost twelve and one-half cents 
(12^c) each, mailed, which would make them cost one dollar and 
fifty cents per dozen, and by selling them to the trade at $4.50 it 
would leave the author a net profit of three dollars a dozen, or 
twenty-five cents on each copy. 

I got my cojDy quite early and that out of the second supply, 
the first having been exhausted when I called to get one at the C. 
S. reading rooms where C. S. literature was kept for sale; and my 
copy is of the "Tenth Thousand." If no more editions were printed, 
but it is reasonable to infer from the following "New By-Laws" 
that there were: "It shall be the privilege and duty of every mem- 
ber of this Church who can afford it, to subscribe for the periodicals 
that are the organs of this Church" (137:356, Aug. 1899.) then she 
would make twenty-five hundred dollars net, alone on ten thousand 
copies, at twenty-five cents net on each copy. Now if she healed in 
obedience to the command of the Master, whom she claims to follow 
more closely than the orthodox ministry does, whom she character- 
izes as follows: "If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly salary, and 



I 



408 

architectural skill, making dome and spire tremulous with beauty, 
turn the poor and stranger from the gate, they also shut the door on 
progress" (109:36), she could not possibly earn over two thousand 
dollars a year. To do that she would have to average over seven 
patients a day, at five dollars for six treatments, or thirty-five dollars 
a week for seven patients a day, making for fifty-two weeks, at thir- 
ty-five dollars a week, eighteen hundred and twenty dollars a year. 
That is considerably less than twenty-five hundred dollars, is it not? 
Do you see now why "the author takes no patients, and declines 
medical consultation," even though she admits that S. and H. "con- 
tains the complete Science of Mind-healing," which would, there- 
fore, no longer reqiiire her as a "scribe * * * transcribing what 
God indites?" It simply pays, that is why? 

I do not accuse God's "scribe" with any mercenary motives on 
her part, for I believe she is [like a professor of a University said 
the representatives of the octopi do,.when they put on a fractional 
increase of cost on their products to the consumers, that they do so 
in order to invest the profits in some new productive industry, be- 
cause as he said: "In America we do not levy taxes to secure money 
for big improvements. Private capital does it" (57:Feby. 1, 1903).] 
gathering profits to invest in, who knows, new printing presses for 
the publication of the new literature that will be required by the 
One Church, or the "One Infallible Bible Church," which will re- 
sult from the publication and reading of this book. 

Of course, if enough Christologists could be converted to the 
One Church, or the "One Infallible Bible Church," and they brought 
their powers with them, we would not need new printing presses. 
They could treat the old presses and make them "perfect." 

"The healer must thoroughly realize that God is omnipotent; 
that He hears and answers the prayers of all those who ask Him 
in perfect faith. I give illustrations: In our printing office the old 
printing machine which we had would not print our paper without 
muddying and mashing down the type of one entire side of eight 
pages, and the mechanism could not remedy it. We found it im- 
possible to buy a new machine, because the factories were all behind 
with their orders, consequently our paper had to go out thus muti- 
lated, so far as all human agencies were concerned. The editor of 
the News Letter, under these conditions, saw at once that God was 
the remedy. We therefore treated the situation, declaring that God's 



409 

Truth could not be mutilated by an old iron press, and that error 
could not work to destroy the spreading of the Truth in that way. 
The result was that God answered our prayer, and the old press has 
worked as well ever since as if it were new, right out of the fac- 
tory, perfect' (148:37, 38). 

That comes pretty near equalling some of the fables in the 
Bible, and in the "Legends of the Saints," does it not? 

If that is what "Reformed" 0. S. is, then may the Lord save 
us from a Reformed "Reformed" C. S. What say you? What a 
world of good these Christologists could do, who can treat old, 
worn-out printing presses so that they become "perfect," if they 
would go through the country and the cities and treat with Truth, 
for the poor people, their old burnt out • cook stoves that will no 
longer "draw," and which have cracks in them letting the ashes fall 
through them onto the bread and "Johnny-cakes" in the ioven, so 
that the stoves would work "as well * * * as if new, right out 
of the factory, perfect." Is that not so? 

I trust the reader will pardon these side excursions of mine, 
for we have no individual minds of our own. Besides, I was bom 
under the star "Virgo," and those born under that star, astrologers 
say, are "analytical, * * * material and, to some extent, intui- 
tive * * * love freedom, * * * are extremely critical, sar- 
castic at times. * * * Their affections are strong, likewise * * * 
their will power, * * * sometimes fussy and inquisitive" (158:116, 
Feb., 1903). ("That's me," isn't it?) 

There are some, of course, who say that "on the part of the 
chief manipulator of the scheme [C. S.] there is a strong suspicion 
of commercialism," and that "with a "wonderful exhibition of the 
result of worldly shrewdness in spiritual enterprise, she owns a hand- 
some estate and is richly apparelled; somewhat unlike the Lord, of 
course, who was clad in poor raiment and had not whereon to rest 
his head; or the Apostles, who of silver and gold had none" (53: 
Dec. 25, 1901), and that she barters her 'Paraclete' or 'Comforter 
for $3.18 (cloth) or $5.00 (morocco binding)," and that her ''only 
real science is apparently that of getting dollars and cents'"' (159: 
56, 97). 

But who are these writers who accuse the "scribe" of God of 
"commercialism," and of owning a handsome estate, "somewhat un- 
like the Lord * * * who * * * had not whereon to rest His 



410 

head," and say she "barters her Paraclete" or "Comforter?" They 
are both representatives of an institution that had better see whether 
its trails are clear or not before attempting to step on those of 
others. Can it be said of her that of silver and gold she has none, 
according to this? 

"It is told of Thomas Aguinas that, on visiting Rome on one 
occasion, he was shown by the Pope through the Vatican; its treas- 
ures being duly pointed out to the learned doctor, and dilated upon 
with unctious satisfaction by the Holy Father. After leading him 
through this unrivalled treasure house, the Pope, rubbing his hands 
together, said: 'Ah, Brother Thomas, the Church can no longer 
say, with St. Peter, 'Silver and gold have I none.' True, Holy 
Father,' answered the wise doctor, 'but can she say with St. Peter,' 
'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk' " (74: 
14)? 

I have never been in the Vatican, but from what I have heard 
of it the "chief manipulator" has certainly that "whereon to rest 
his head." What say you? 

"Wise St. Ignatius said, that if men in religious houses were 
not fed well, they could never pray well; and in the work 'Good 
Superior,' we m^y see how he was always teasing the Father Min- 
isters to get better food, and of a more expensive quality. He 
drove one nearly wild by insisting that all the community should 
have lampreys one Friday when they were very dear, so that only 
cardinals [A title something like that of C. S. Ds. in C. S.J and 
embassadors were buying them" (11:194). 

I suppose if in those day cardinals only could eat lampreys, 
because they were so dear, they, "unlike the Lord, of course," had 
whereon to rest their heads. Don't you think so? 

"Dr. , the Prince Bishop of — , Austria, offers his golden 

chariot and eight horses for sale, to use the money for the benefit 
of the poor. The carriage has been in possession of the Bishopric 
for several hundred years" (53:May 28, 1902). 

I suppose where one has a "golden chariot and eight horses," 
one had, — "unlike the Lord who had not whereon to rest His head; 
or the Apostles, who of silver and gold had none," — whereon to rest 
his head. Don't you think so? 

"Rev. Fathers — , — and — left for Ireland on Sunday evening. 
* * * Each received purses from their parishioners to pay their 



411 

expenses and as loving tokens, and now their safe return is earnestly 
prayed for" (16: — ). "Just before his departure for Ireland, last 

Sunday evening, Rev. Father was surprised by a few of his 

parishioners and friends, who presented him with a purse containing 
about $500, with which to defray the expenses of his trip" (16: — ). 
"Rev. — was agreeably surprised, last Sundaj', when a few friends 
called to wish him a very pleasant trip to Europe and presented him 
with a purse of $940. The action shows how much the labors of 
the Rev. — are appreciated" (16: — ). "The Very Rev. — * * * 
arrived * * * from a three months' trip abroad. An informal 
reception was given in his honor * * * by the parishioners * 
* * A purse containing about $1,000 was presented to the reverend 
pastor" (5B: — ). "The Rev. — * * * ^as given a reception by 
the members of his parish in the church * * * in honor of the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. The 
church was filled to the doors * * * There were addresses by 
members of the parish [But, of course, not by any women, for it is 
a "shame" for a woman to speak in church, unless, probably not, 
when she makes a presentation speech by handing a poverty -vowed 
ambassador of Christ a purse of more than $1,000.] and a presenta- 
tion speech of a purse of more than a $1,000" (53: — ). "The mem- 
bers of — church * * * presented their worthy pastor * * * 
before his departure on the pilgrimage to Rome, with a purse of 
$1,200 as a token of appreciation of his indefatigable labors among 
his congregation. Many personal gifts were also given him" (53: — ). 

I suppose the "indefatigable labors" means this: 

"The Rev. — * * * ^nd [Two laymen], the commit- 
tee in charge of the arrangements for the parish picnic * * * 
are working indefatlgahly (Italics are mine) to make the event one 
of the most [Must have had others already of the season.] success- 
ful and enjoyable of the season" (53: — ); or this: "A grand euchre 
and reception in aid of the Church * * * y^iH be held * * * 
Admission, 50 cents. * * * The committee in charge and the 
pastor, the Rev. — , have left nothing undone to make this enter- 
tainment one of the most successful in the history of the parish." 

Such "indefatigable labors," in the Lord's vineyard, ought to be 
worthy of "a purse of $1,200 as a token of appreciation" by poverty- 
vowed ambassadors of Christ. Do you not think so? 

"The parishoners of — Church * * * celebrated the twenty -fiifth 



412 

anniversary of the ordination of their pastor * * * in the 
church, and presented him with a check for $2,250. * * * The 
school children gave Father — a silver bottle cigar-holder, [In 
order to smoke, making him an example for" the growing-up boys 
to imitate] in one compartment of which was $100 in gold." [Like 
the Apostles had (53: — )]. "The jubilee exercises of the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the ordination of the Rev. — * * * -were 
held. * * * The Rev. — , on behalf of the parishoners, pre- 
sented Dr. — with a handsomely bound autograph album, and an 
ilkiminated check for $2,500 was given in the name of the parish- 
oners by Mr. — " (53: — ). "The celebration * * * in honor of 
the fortieth anniversary of the ordination of the Rev. — was a 
notable one. * * * Later in the day a purse of $4,000 in gold 
[Such as the Apostles had] was presented to Dr. — by his friends. 
The presentation took place at the parish house" (53: — ). 

Now, I suppose that in all those cases, mentioned here, they 
had wherewith to apparel themselves, "somewhat unlike the Lord, 
of course, who was clad in poor raiment," don't you think so? 

Let us now see if anything may be found "whereon to rest" 
the heads of those who criticise others for having a place whereon 
to rest their heads. The "parish house" mentioned in the last quo- 
tation above means a pastoral residence or rectory for which no 
rent is paid by the pastors, and is furnished by the parish. 

"The people of — parish, — [A town with less than two thou- 
sand inhabitants] are justly proud of the results from the fair held 
recently. The proceeds are to be applied to a fund for the erec- 
tion of a $3,500 pastoral residence" (53: — ). 

How would you like to make vows of poverty and' be given a 
$3,500 residence, free of rent, in a town oi less than two thousand 
inhabitants?? 

"The annual harvest festival to be held, will be the means of 
securing funds to pay off the debt on the new rectory recently pur- 
chased and altered. This cost about $10,000" (53: — ). "In course 
of time the pastor purchased the site on which the new church and 
rectory stands, built the handsome church at a cost of $200,000, 
[Putting, as it were, the gold on the church-steeple, instead of feed- 
ing the hungry on the ground, and this, too, in a city of less than 
50,000 inhabitants] and three years ago completed the equally ornate 
and substantial (Italics are mine) rectory which adjoins at a cost 



413 

of $30,000. * * * An interesting feature of the exercises will be 
the presentation of a large purse to Father — ." [Who occupies 
this $30,000 rectory] (53:—). 

I suppose that we have a right to infer that the occupants of 
$3,500, $10,000, and $30,000 rectories, rent free, had places whereon 
to rest their heads, "somewhat unlike the Lord, of course." 

And it appears, from financial statements issued by the churches, 
that in some places the rectory is even maintained out of the parish 
fund. I will give one. 

"The principal items of expense were $ for repairs and 

renewals; $1,384 for salaries of clergy [Usually two to one church]; 
$912.59 for maintenance of the rectory." (63: — ), etc. 

Nor is that all that those get, who are so unlike the Christian 
Scientists who have whereon to lay their heads, and who "barter 
the Paraclete." 

Besides their fixed salaries and the rent free rectory, there is 
an income for the clergy from various sources. The first one that 
I wish to call attention to, and which has been mentioned already 
in another chapter, where it was shown that millions of dollars are 
spent annually in this country alone, is that of paid Masses for the 
dead, special intentions, etc. A priest is not bound to offer Mass 
unless the honorarium is paid. 

"It is not the correct thing to request a priest to offer mass for 
a special intention or object without presenting a honorarium. A 
priest is only bound to offer Mass for a special intention when this 
honorary is paid. * * * In the United States this honorary is 
never less than one dollar and may be any sum above this, accord- 
ing to one's regard for or obligations to the priest" (63:84). 

What obligations is one under to a priest? Is it not his obli- 
gation to attend to all of man's spiritual wants and troubles of all 
kinds, outside of the physical and temporal? And is he not paid 
a fixed salary for that? Is the poor man doubly unfortunate be- 
cause he is deprived here of some of the luxuries and necessities 
of life, and must also suffer the longer in purgatory simply because 
he, or his, have not the wherewith to present "honorariums?" Is 
that not, then, "bartering the Comforter?" Is this not "bartering 
the Comforter" when the "Bishop has laid it down as a general 



414 

rule for all that the stipend for a Low Mass shall be one dollar, 
and for a High Mass five dollars" (62:130)? 

Do you not think it is very much out of place for any to charge 
others with "bartering the Comforter" when they themselves do such 
a thing? That is one source of revenue for those who call C. S. a 
"Humbug" (53: Dec. 25, 1901), and have an article on the "Ex- 
posure of the Senseless Teachings of Mrs. Eddy." 

Here is another source of revenue: 

"It is the correct thing for a bridegroom, through his best man, 
to present the officiating clergyman with a sum in proportion to 
his means and his joy at winning a bride. [Whom in after years 
he is so joyous over as to leave her alone at home of evenings, 
while he is down town loading up with liquor to give her an 
'affectionate greeting' on his return home, after the saloons have 
closed up for the night and there is no place elsewhere for him to 
go.] Ten dollars is considered a decent honorary, which may be 
increased according to means." [If you happen to earn more than 
"a dollar and a dime" a day] (63:44, 45). 

Here is another source of revenue: 

"It is the correct thing for the sponsor to present an honora- 
rium to the officiating clergyman. [At baptism]. For the father 
to do likewise if he feels able" (63:11). 

I know of cases where the sponsor and the father of the child 
paid each one dollar to the clergyman, for baptizing a child, and 
those two men's combined earnings did not exceed the fixed salaries 
paid to the two priests of the parish. The former had no chances 
to earn extras — "honorariums;" had to pay rent, where the clergy 
have the rectory free of rent; had to pay pew rents and contribute 
to schools, special collections for various kinds which they have in 
the Church, etc. And they took no vows of poverty, either. 

Even the school children are called upon to contribute their 
mite towards getting suits and cassocks as Christmas presents for 
the clergy. And when a pastor dies a collection is taken up from the 
school children to pay for an anniversary Mass of the dead priest. 
Where there are hundreds of children and only one-fourth, say 
seventy-five of them, contribute only a nickel or a dime, it will easily 
amount to five dollars with which to pay for a High Mass for the 
dead priest. And that, too, where there is a monastery full of priests. 
One would think that out of so many priests, some one priest would 



415 

have charity enoiigh for a brother priest to offer a Mass for him 
without calling on the school children to pay him for it. 

That is one of the not correct things to "neglect to have the 
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered at times for the repose of the 
souls of deceased clergy" (63:83), therefore the parishioners are sup- 
posed to have that done, which they do. 

If a priest, who has such powers that he can "out of the slime 
of the earth" make the "celestial God," — and who can go to the bed- 
side of the bedridden and say: "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 
arise and walk," and they get up and walk(?) — has to be Massed 
out of purgatory a year after his death, I wonder what will become 
of us laymen, especially me? I suppose I will be in the very bot- 
tom of hell, poked in the ribs by that devil who tempted Lucifer 
to sin. Ahem. 

And now, besides the fixed salaries, and the "honorariums" for 
baptisms, Masses, and marriages, there is taken up a collection at 
Christmas which is "intended as a present to the Pastors, and an 
occasion is thus given to show your appreciation of their services." 

What this amounts to we cannot know, unless the collection is 
according to subscription as it is done in some churches, — and 
where that is not done the priest takes up the collection to see how 
people contribute, whether they contribute according to their means 
or not, for he knows pretty well who is who and what. 

I remember one Christmas collection in a church where the 
subscriptions were printed later and left in the pews, so one could 
see how much or how little one's acquaintances and friends con- 
tributed, which amounted to over six hundred dollars. I remember 
when we got home from church we added up the figures and we 
commented on it, — I then being yet a "practical" Catholic, — that 
that was over fifty dollars a month, if one worked on a salary for a 
year. And many, yes, the largest majority of the parish, were salary 
and wage earning people. 

As to the "appreciation of their services," if the priests could 
hear all that laymen hear, the priests would not think that their ser- 
vices were so greatly appreciated that they should receive presents 
in the way of a Christmas collection. Some said, when speaking of 
the many calls made on them to sell and to buy chances on various 
articles to be raffled off at fairs; to work at card parties, ice cream 
secials, etc.; to contribute to this and to that, that "it is a little 



416 

heavy on us." And that "for all of what we do, we old people and 
children have to go to Mass and to instructions on Sunday to the 
extreme corner of the parish, instead of, as it used to be, let us attend 
in a building that is the property of the parish, and is centrally 
located." 

But then you see it is better that a great number be incon- 
venienced rather than that one be inconvenienced who is so unlike 
the Christian Scientists who have whereon to rest their heads. I 
am outside the pale of the Church, therefore, I am free to state 
facts. A Catholic, if he did that, would be anathematized and ex- 
communicated, therefore, he has to keep those things to himself, or 
at least not tell it openly so it would get to the ears of the priests. 

I will now give a few more quotations to let you see whether 
or not there was no "commercialism" in others besides the "chief 
manipulator of the scheme" of C. S. 

■'The will of the Very Rev. — * * * ^.g^g filed recently. 
The estate is valued at about $100,000" (53:—). "Archbishop — 's 
will has been filed for probate. The estate is valued at $125,000" 
(16: — ). "The will of Archbishop — * * * j^^s been filed. His 
wealth when he died * * * was $800,000" (57:— ). 

You, who receive fifteen dollars, or ten dollars a wfiek; or two 
dollars, or one dollar and a half a day, with no regular work, or a 
"dollar and a dime" a day, how would you like to make vows of 
poverty and be given money to pay your expenses of a visit to the 
"Ould country," or to the "Vaterland," and see the relatives and 
friends you left behind you when you came to America? Or how 
would you like to make vows of poverty and live in an "ornate and 
substantial" residence costing $30,000? How would you not like a 
chance, besides your two dollars, or a "dollar and a dime" a day 
regular wages with irregular work, to receive "honorariums" of from 
one to ten dollars occasionally? You would like it first rate, would 
you not, even though you had not made vows of poverty? 

Do you not think that instead of calling it "vows of poverty," 
which those make who are so unlike the Christian Scientists, it 
ought to be called "vows of grabberty," being that they have be- 
come so money tainted, and like to "sit suf)inely back taking mat- 
ters easily," as one of their own stated it? 

"We Catholics believe that there are 64,000,000 souls surround- 
ing us — with whom we are intimately connected — perishing for want 



417 

of Catholic faith, and our clergy in many instances, religious and 
secular, sit supinely hack taking matters easily (Italics are mine) 
— nay, refusing in fact to bestir themselves! -Great God! do we 
believe our faith at all, or if we did, could we act in this way. 
What is the cause of it all? * * * The truth is that, as a whole, 
we have become tainted. Money — * * * — ^^(j ^jjg comfort 
and ease [This seems as though it might be "somewhat unlike the 
Lord, of course, who was clad in poor raiment and had not where- 
on to rest His head; or like the Apostles, who of silver and gold 
had none"] of this world's goods, which have corrupted to a greater 
or less extent the whole American people, have also tainted us" 
(28:128,129). 

Do you not think, then, that those who charge others with 
"commercialism" and owning a "handsome estate;" of being "richly 
apparelled; somewhat unlike the Lord, of course, who was clad in 
poor raiment and had not whereon to rest His head;" and who "bar- 
ters her 'Paraclete or Comforter,' " and whose '•'■only real science is 
apparently that of getting dollars and cents,'''' had better see whether 
or not they are free from the same, before speaking? 

That they are not all like the priest said of themselves that 
they are, I will admit, neither are all Christian Scientists alike, for 
I know of healers who treated, gratuitously, poor people, whose 
means had in some instances gone to another class of i^eople who 
seem to delight in self-justification and in ridiculing, criticising, 
and suppressing that which is unlike their own. And these are the 
medical doctors. 

Just see how they have fought every new school of healing that 
was different from their own, not because they had the welfare of 
the people at heart, and wanted to protect them from the so-called 
"quackery," such as Osteopathy, Magnetic Healing, Christian Science, 
Dowieism, etc., but because they saw that the bread was being taken 
out of their mouths. 

I hope the day is not far distant when the people will do a 
little legislating to protect themselves from being drugged and cut 
to death, — and then have to pay for it, — instead of legislating and 
giving 7nateria viedica almost a monopoly of the healing art. If 
we had a law that no doctor or surgeon could collect fees, when 
losing the patient, I believe our lives would be safer in their hands. 
As it is now, they are too ready with administering medicines, labeled 



418 

poison, and in using the knife. Such a law would then weed out 
the incompetents, also, and would be nothing more than just. 

Why should materia medica be paid for failures when in other 
sciences we do not pay them when they fail? Why should they bd 
paid when they make blunders? And do they not make blunders, 
wrong diagnoses? 

" * * * died on the operating table at a local hospital 

* * * after an operation for a supposed abscess of the brain, 
but which was not found by the surgeons." "The many friends of 
Rev. — — will regret that his illness has assumed a serious nature 

* * * Physicians operated on him * * * for gall stones, only 
to find that their diagnosis had been wrong; there were no gall 
stones, and it is now believed that his trouble arises from his liver." 

"Dr. — operated on * * * for an abscess of the hip, and 

removed a large amount of pus * * * — has been sick [For 
eight months] and * * * until quite recently physicians were oi 
the opinion that he was suffering with sciatic rheumatism." [Here 
a patient was treated eight months for that which he did not have.] 
" — — , aged 39 years, died * * * after an illness of seven or 
eight weeks. The attending physicians were unable to say just what 
his trouble was" (Daily Papers). 

Now, I ask, would there be anything unjust in making a law 
that no physicians or surgeons could collect fees where they lose 
the patient, or where they make wrong diagnoses and keep one a 
patient indefinitely and in the end give one up as incurable only 
when one has spent all one's substance on them, when they make 
so many mistakes which we can know of for a certainty? How 
many mistakes they bury we have no way of knowing, but that 
they do make mistakes we leans, to know of when they prescribe 
and operate for that which it is afterwards found does not exist. 

I would not go as far as some would, and that is to "bring suit 
against the doctor for criminal carelessness, negligence, etc., when 
a patient fails to recover from a sickness" (Daily paper), but if 
they could not collect fees under those circumstances, it would make 
them more cautious and careful, if they knew they would not get 
anything unless the patient recovered. Many a one would not 
recover anyway, and to hold the doctor responsible in such cases 
would not be justice, but when a doctor can not collect unless the 
patient recovers, he will try to make himself competent enough to 



419 

know whether the patient can recover or not, and if not, then it is 
his place to tell those in charge of the patient that the patient can 
not recover and that he will therefore not waste time on the patient. 
If then they want him to prescribe anyway, why then he should 
be paid whether the patient recovers or not. But when a physician 
says he does not know whether or not he can do the patient any 
good, but will do the best he can, then he should not be allowed to 
collect fees if the patient does not recover. Is there anything un- 
just in that? 

Would you feel like paying an architect and builder for put- 
ting up a building, and he should tell you, I do not know whether 
or not I can build it, but I will try to do the best I can, and he 
should fail? Then why should the doctor be paid for his "does 
not know, but will try to do the best I can?" 

Why is it that they charge so exorbitantly for a few moments 
consultation, unless it is as pay for the knowledge in the healing 
art which they are supposed to have acquired in years of study? 
And do you call that knowledge by saying, I do not know, but will 
do the best I can? 

After I had given up materia medica I have had reputable 
physicians tell me, after having had a talk with them, which was 
just casual, that they believed they could cure me. I said to them, 
All right, doctor, if you believe you can cure me, go ahead and do 
it, and I will pay you double your regular fee, but if you do not 
cure me you will not get a cent! This was years ago and not one 
of them yet "believed" enough to take me up. Some said they did 
not do business that way. No, they must not be out anything, but 
the many whom they have impoverished and still left helpless, they 
need not have anything to show for their money. That way of 
doing business is all right — for the doctors. 

And now, notwithstanding their failures in helping patients — 
unless it be to get them the sooner, six feet under the ground — 
they want a monopoly of the healing art on the pretext that the 
public should be protected from quackery and nonsense, such as is 
Osteopathy, Magnetic Healing, Dowieism, C. S., etc. 

" 'The old school physicians — are making war on Christian 
Scientists and osteopaths,' said Dr. — , secretary of the — state 
board of medical examiners. * * * 'When the legislature meets 
* * * an effort will be made to have stringent laws passed pro- 



420 

hibiting Christian Scientists and osteopaths from practicing unless 
they pass examinations in medicine' " (Daily paper). 

And why do they want to prohibit osteopaths and Christian 
Scientists? Is it because the doctors never have failures? Read 
the following and see whether they have failures or not: 

"Dr. — is treating twelve cases of f^ver of the prevailing type. 
He says he will give any of the so-called Christian Scientists $500 
if they will go with him and reduce the temperature of any of them 
one degree by their methods" (Daily paper). 

Lacking one day of being a month when the above appeared in 
the paper, the following appeared about the same doctor: 

" the — year [Between six and ten years] old — [child] 

of Dr. and Mrs. — , died * * * of — fever, after a lingering 
illness of six weeks." 

Now, could he do more than the Christian Scientists? If he 
could, then loliy did he not save the life of his own child? 

" * * * died * * * at the — hospital from a shock 

following an operation." " , a student at the — medical col- 
lege, died of appendicitis. * * * He had been ill a little over 
a week, and was operated upon. * * * — y^-as twenty-three years 

old." "Mrs. * * * died at the family home * * * Qf 

a surgical shock resulting from an opperation. * * * gjie was 

thirty-three years old." "Mrs. , wife of — , the banker, is dead 

after an operation for the removal of a tumor." "A woman died in 
— recently after an operation. She seemed to know that she would 
iiot live through it, and begged piteously to go home and see her 
children again; she had not seen them for three weeks. It was 
thought best to perform the operation without delay, and death 
followed" (Daily paper). 

What a cry of "manslaughter" there would have been had those 
deaths resulted in some other school of healing. But then they 
have the law on their side, therefore, they can cut and slay, with 
impunity, and collect fees besides. 

I know of a case of poor hard working people who had a child 
operated on and which died, and the doctors sent in a bill for $150. 
It is an outrage, is it not, for such exorbitant charges for a few 
hours, or less, work that is a failure? 

I know of a case of supposed appendicits that the doctors said, 
over three years ago, the patient would have to undergo an operation 



421 

for if the patient wanted to live, but the patient being afraid of an 
operation went without it, and is living to-day. 

How many of the operations, nowadays, which result in death, 
may be unnecessary if the real facts were known? And if they 
could not collect fees for such operations, they would probably not 
be so ready with the knife. 

That there are operations that are necessary, in some instances, 
I admit, but they should never be performed without taking into 
consideration the patients' temperament. 

"Dr. — , one of the best known young physicians and surgeons 
of — died * * * after an illness of three weeks * * * The 
physicians attending Dr. — knew [That is, they thought they knew.] 
that a surgical operation was necessary to save his life * * * 
'It seems remarkably sad,' said Dr. — , * * * 'that one who was 
himself an expert surgeon should have passed away because surgery 
did not know how to relieve his suflferings' " (Daily Paper). 

Is it not about time people opened their eyes, and not permit 
themselves to be "bumfoozled" any longer, and pass laws for their 
protection from those who admit they do "not know?" 

"Dr. — , a prominent physician * * * committed suicide 
* * * He had been in poor health for two years, and had 
just returned * * * from — , where he had been undergoing 
treatment in a hospital for stomach trouble. Dr. — was 45 years 
old" (Daily Paper;. 

How easily he could have been healed in C. S., if it could have 
got hold of him and stopped the medicine. That was all he needed, 
for that was my experience when materia medica had me aflfected 
with a "complication of diseases," one of which was stomach trou- 
bles. All I did was to stop the medicines and give the healing laws 
of nature a chance. I did not deny matter, disease, sin, or the tes- 
timony of the senses, yet got healed just the same, in all that which 
was "healable." 

"Dr. — , one of the best known physicians of — , and a surgeon 
of wide reputation, died at * * * his home * * * of Bright's 
disease. * * * For the last fifteen years Dr. — had not enjoyed 
good health * * * but continued in active practice until early 
this year" (Daily Paper). 

Here was a doctor who could not heal himself in fifteen years, 
yet continued in active practice up to within six months of his death. 



422 

I suppose it would not have been much out of place to have said 
to him, "Physician, heal thyself, before attempting to heal others." 

« — * * * is no more. Death came to him at * * * — 
hospital, after several days [But less than a week.] of intense suffer- 
ing * * * ^ week ago Mr. — was the picture of health * * * 
47 years of age * * * All the remedies which the physicians 
could use failed to relieve Mr. — " (Daily Paper). 

If that patient had died under the care of Christian Scientists 
there would no doubt have been "some excitement," and "the state 
board of health" (161:Feb. 7, 1903) would have investigated it. But 
as it was otherwise, we pay the bill and simply say, "Amen, it was 
God's will," and let it go at that. 

"Mrs. — died * * * this morning * * * ^as 23 years 
old * * * Her baby — , for whom she gave her life, was born — , 
and is alive. * * * Six physicians were in attendance and a — 
specialist was brought to — on a special train in record breaking 
time" (Daily Paper). 

Now if that had happened under the care of Dowieites, what 
an excitement there would no doubt have been, and the city author- 
ities would have ordered the "strictest investigation" and had them 
arrested for man slaughter. But when six doctors look wise and hold 
a consultation in private, — even though every one should dissent 
were he called in alone, — and seem to have a unanimous opinion, 
and prescribe accordingly, why, then, if the patient dies it is said, 
"It had to be so," and we let it go at that. 

u — ^ * * * died * * * at his home * * * gig death 
was caused by inflammation of the bowels. He had been ill about 
one week and yesterday his condition was somewhat improved. He 
grew worse last night, however, and after a consultation of nine phy- 
sicians [No wonder that he died] * * * ^^^ operation was per- 
formed. There was no change for the better and * * * he 
passed away" (Daily Paper)i 

That is nearly a parallel case with that of the Christologists, 
who gave a patient absent "heroic treatment" by "putting nine 
healers on the case;" with this difference that the physician's buried 
their mistake, while the Christologists saved their patient, because 
sickness "is not, never was, and never can be" (148:12), so, how then 
could the patient "pass away" when there can be nothing the matter 
with the patient? 



423 

In telling how a certain man became a Christian he had this 
to say: 

"My conversion came in God's own good way and time. * * * 
An attack of typhoid fever was the turning point. I was a stranger 
and at a hotel. The negro boy — , who waited upon me, saved my 
life. The doctors had given me up to die. [Probably because he 
was a stranger and had nothing with which to pay their fees 
had they doctored him until he died.] I heard them say [To the 
negro boy] 'Give him anything he asks for.' I made it known to 
him that I wanted ice-water, and it was brought — a pitcherful, cold 
as it could be. I drank, and drank, and drank! I felt the coolness 
to my very finger tips, and said to myself inwardly, 'I will get well' 
— and so I did. It was the ice-water that did it. The surprised 
doctors postponed the funeral they had expected. I came out of 
the jaws of death, and by slow degrees [Just as the healing laws 
of nature work, when not hindered] strength came back to me. I 
had time to think and pray, to look at my past life, and to ponder 
the paths of my feet" (38:605, July 3, 1901). 

There is no question about it that if that man had not been a 
stranger, and was known to have plenty of money, that the doctors 
would not have given him up, and would have staid with him, and 
in doing so would have kept the Ice-water from him and drugged 
him more until death would inevitably have resulted. 

That plentiful drinking of water is good, at least, for the incip- 
ient stages of fever I know from my own experiences. Shortly 
after I had read in the Memoirs of Franklin that "cold water drank 
plentifully is good for a fever" (162:37, Vol. 1) I felt two attacks 
of fever come upon me, a few months apart. I was made so sick 
by them that I could not eat. Remembering what Franklin had 
said about the plentiful use of water in case of fever I thought I 
would try it. One time, to which I wish to call special attention 
to, was on a Saturday. The day before, I had been out and had 
got chilled, — it being in November, when, as a rule, we are not yet 
acclimated to cold weather we seem to feel the first changes more 
than we do later, — and that Saturday morning I woke up with, as 
the Christian Scientists express it, a "belief" of fever which had 
made me so sick that I could not eat anything all day. As I was 
not working so that I had to get up and go out, I remained in bed 
all day, and drank cold water — a tumbler full every half hour or so 



424 

— with the result that Sunday I was well enough to go to Church 
in the forenoon, and in the afternoon went to see a crippled boy 
who lived upon a rather steep hill, which I had to climb, two 
blocks from the end of a car line, and if there is anything hard for 
me to do it is to go up a steep incline or grade. 

Here I had met the incipient stage of fever, not as C. S. says 
one should, that is, "with such powerful eloquence [Which is plain 
auto-suggestion] as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage 
of an inhuman law" (109:389), but by the plentiful drinking of cold 
water, which, is a feat one can perform without "powerful eloquence." 
If I had attempted, with my limited vocabulary and awarkward ex- 
pression, to meet the incipient stage of fever with "powerful elo- 
quence," I am afraid I might have been out-talked by the fever, as 
Eve was by that red "Maiden Blush" apple, and would have had a 
"belief" of fever that would have been more lasting than one day. 

My advice to you is, that if you feel the incipient stages of 
fever coming on you, that you drink plentifully of cold water, 
rather than employ "powerful eloquence." You know that a mob 
can be put to flight quicker by turning a hose of cold water on it 
than by using "powerful eloquence" for that purpose. The same is 
it with burning fever. It can be quenched, like fire, easier with 
water than with "powerful eloquence," — auto-suggestion. 

We have now seen that materia medica has as many failures, 
in proportion to its length of time it has been in existence, as has 
C. S., Dowieism, Osteopathy, Magnetic Healing, etc. Then why 
should it have laws passed giving it almost a monopoly of the heal- 
ing art? Or why should it be allowed to collect fees when it makes 
failures, oftentimes death being due, as I have shown, to the want 
of knowledge of the physicians? Even one of their own scores the 
physicians for their blunderings. He said at the commencement 
exercises of a College of Physicians and Surgeons that "In view of 
all the things which modem scientific knowledge enables one to 
know with certainty, there is too much uncertainty, too much hideous 
blundering in medical practice. To trifie with human life in defi- 
ance of well known scientific truths, to proceed upon mere guess 
when the facts essential to competent and exact treatment may be 
easily ascertained, is an offense against decency and should be made 
an offense against law which would land one in jail." [Like materia 
medica would land "in jail" a Christian Scientist, a Dowieite, a 



425 

Magnetic Healer or an Osteopath, should either of them lose a pa- 
tient] (Daily paper). 

If it is said that materia medica has laws passed only to pro- 
tect the public from impostures or deceit, then why not pass laws, 
also, prohibiting prominent and respectable merchants from adver- 
tising lies about their goods, with which to "bumfoozle" the gullible 
public, if such can be called "gullible" who, after materia medica 
has failed to give them relief, seek it in Osteopathy, Magnetic Heal- 
ing, C. S., Dowieism, etc.? 

Are not the following extracts of advertisements of different 
merchants in different lines of business, in different cities, lies, 
plain lies? 

"Rolling Pins — a revolving handle, plain, smooth article, sold 
everywhere (All italics are mine] for 9c, for 2c." "7-inch Dinner 
Plates, in pink border decorations, gold traced, sell everywhere for 
90o set of 6, this sale 48c." "Ladies 50c Hose for 29c per pair. 
These are the Hermsdorf dye, in pretty lace lisle effects, equal to the 
regular 50c lace lisle hose offered everywhere; will be sold here to- 
morrow, per pair, 29c." "Underwear — Ladies' imported silk vests, 
imported lisle vests * * * such as sell everywhere at $1.00, 
$1.25 and $1.50 — choice 50c." "Our $10 hats will equal any in the 
city at $15. Our |15 hats will equal any in the city at $25." "Ex- 
traordinary Men's Suit Bargains * * * 200 pure worsted suits 

* * * canH be hought in any store under $12.50— this stylish, 
splendid suit on sale here for $7.50." "25c Oranges, tomorrow, 
dozen, 12|^c * * * They are the same oranges [Not the same 
oranges, but the same kind, probably.] that sell everywhere at 25c 
a dozen. Come here and buy all you want as long as you are not 
a dealer for, dozen, 12ic." "$3.00 to $4.00 Pants tomorrow, $1.69 

* * * they are the same things that have sold at $3.00 and some 
of them at $4.00 all year up and down — street. [ Principal business 
street.] * * * take them away tomorrow for, pair $1.69." "French 
Flannel Waistings, in Persian stripes and figures, that are selling the 
country over at 75c a yard, will be a Saturday special here at, yard 
49c." "Navel Oranges * * * the same that are sold all over 
town for 40c a dozen — will go in this sale at, dozen 19c." "Our 
Greatest Offer! Purchase $3 worth and secure a $5 premium. 

* * * we will give away absolutely free with every purchase 
amounting to $8 or more any one of our useful and substantial 



426 

premiums worth $5.00 wherever they are sold." "Toys! * * * 
selling everywhere at 75c, our price 25c. Kindergarten Sets, selling 
everywhere at 25c, 35c and 50c, our price 15c." 

I will now prove to you why I know that every one of those 
advertisements are lies, or else they did that which is even worse 
than lying, if those advertisements are true. How does a merchant 
know that an article which he sells at a lower price than that arti- 
cle is "sold everywhere," or "sells everywhere," or is "equal" to that 
"ofPered everywhere," or "will equal any in the city" at a higher 
price, or "can't be bought in any store," or that "have sold all year 
up and down" the principal business street, or "are selling the coun- 
try over," or "are sold all over town," is true unless he or his em- 
ployes have been in every store and priced the goods which he 
advertises for a lower price than others ask for them? If he did 
not do that then he lies, does he not? And if he did, then is it not 
a mean, contemptible piece of business to go or send some one into 
other stores, putting the tired clerks to a lot of trouble to show goods 
and to price them without any intention of buying, but simply to 
learn the price at which they sell or offer them for sale? Which 
of the two horns will those merchants take who advertise as I have 
just quoted? 

They cannot justify themselves by saying that their customers 
told them so. When I was yet able to attend to business, often- 
times customers would come to the door of the store and say they 
wanted so and so, which we had displayed in sample baskets in 
front of the store. I will mention one thing, in particular, and 
that was glass tumblers which we had marked out at 3c. When 
they said they wanted a half dozen or more of those tumblers, we 
would tell them to step inside because we kept the stock inside the 
store. The wrapping counter was about in the middle of the store 
and after we got the tumblers and started to wrap them up, they 
would say: 

"Are those of the same kind as those out-doors? These don't 
look as large as those outside." 

We would then take a sample of those we intended to wrap 
up, and the customer to the outside, where they saw a sample bas- 
ket of them and compared the two. When they saw they were the 
same kind they said, "Well, I was deceived in the size of them, 
surely, this time." Now, if customers cannot carry in eye or in mind, 



427 

the size of an ordinary glass tumbler, by walking into the store 
half way, Tiow do you suppose they can carry size, make, quality, 
and prices of anything when they go blocks, and then probably not 
go into those stores until the next day or later? It is an utter im- 
possibility, is it not? If then, merchants advertise, as I have quoted 
above, they then either deliberately advertise a lie, or else they did 
that which is mean and contemptible, in having tired clerks in other 
stores show them goods, pricing them, without any intention of buy- 
ing. Is that not so? 

The merchants who offered "useful and substantial premiums 
worth $5.00, with every purchase amounting to $3.00," certainly 
advertised bare-faced lies, did they not? If it is said that people 
ought to have more sense than to believe in them, does it not 
prove that some do believe in them because these advertisements 
appear — changed in wording, but meaning the same in substance — 
from time to time? 

Now, why should not a person, who has attained to the age of 
reason, and discretion, and who has probably not found relief in ina- 
teria medica^ not have the right to be "duped," — as inateria viedica 
often claims is the case, but which is not always so — by Osteopa- 
thy, Magnetic Healing, C. S., Dowieism, etc., if one wants to, if 
merchants dupe one with lying advertisements? If legislators pass 
laws for the protection of the populace from one kind of misrepre- 
sentations, then why not of those of lying advertisements, also, 
which are misrepresentations of another kind? 

When it comes to contagious diseases which might jeopardize 
the lives of others, then, I say the law should step in, but when 
it is otherwise, I believe no one has any more right to say to you 
or to me, (on pain of being threatened with prosecution for man- 
slaughter if one dies), when we have attained to the full age of 
reason and discretion and know what we are doing, that we must 
employ a certain healing art when sick, than to say to you or to 
me that we must worship according to what this or that religion 
prescribes. 

Let us then have laws that protect the people as well as the 
doctors. Make them do the work before they can demand pay, and 
if they fail to relieve any one or one dies under their care that 
they should not have anything. Such a law would make them more 
cautious, careful, and tend to weed out the incompetents who say 



428 

they do not know whether they can do one any good or not, but 
will try to do the best they can. Our lives will then be safer in 
their hands when we employ them in our diseases and sicknesses. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Before I get too far away from the advertising question, I wish 
to state that some members of the firms whose advertisements I have 
quoted are members of various Churches, among which is a new one 
which calls itself a Church and whose keynotes of teaching are sup- 
posed to be "absolute honesty and justice, coupled with brotherly love, 
kindness and mercy". Now this new Church likes to pose as 
being "thinkers," eulogizes infidels, ridicules orthodox Christianity, 
and says that the Christian Church has, in the main, lost its influ- 
ence for good morals. Do you see any more of it in those lying 
advertisements of some of its members? 

I know something more about its keynotes of "honesty and 
justice, coupled with brotherly love, kindness and mercy." When 
I saw or came to realize that I would never be able again to take 
charge of my business, I told my brother, who had charge of it 
during my absence on account of affliction, to go to the diflPerent 
stores in the city, tell them of my condition, and to have them 
make an offer on the stock, because I wanted to dispose of it. 
How much do you suppose these "brotherly love, kindness and 
mercy" people offered my brother for good, staple, saleable, — and 
within five per cent, of the whole, — clean stock? All the way from 
forty to twenty-five cents on the dollar. 

Supposing I had had a wife and small children and had no 
other subsistence, and would have had to dispose of my stock at 
such a sacrifice — which I did not do, though, — would we or could we 
have felt that we had been shown any "honesty and justice, coupled 
with brotherly love, kindness and mercy?" 

Who knows how many, though, they have thus taken advantage 
of and wrung from the unfortunate the substance of a hard-earned 
life's savings, which they put into a business and had to give up 
for various reasons? Whenever you read an advertisement of any 
store, stating that they had made a "capture" of a lot of staple 
goods at fifty cents or less on the dollar, reflect for a moment and 
ask yourself, if that advertisement is true whether or not some man, 
whose wife and babies are just as dear to him, — because he has 
only a little, — as they would be if he owned millions, and probably 



429 

dearer than if he had millions, has not probably been compelled to 
make a sacrifice that will in time cause his wife and family to suflPer 
for the necessities of life. Then these that have them in their 
power and can compel great sacrifices on those who are unfortunate, 
like to pose as being "thinkers" and members of a Church which 
claims its keynotes of teaching are "absolute honesty and justice, 
coupled with brotherly love, kindness and mercy." If they wanted 
to practice those virtues they could do it in any of the older 
Churches which do not eulogize infidels, for, no doubt, some "key- 
notes" of their teaching enjoins those same virtues. 

Because there are some hypocrites in the older Churches, who, 
when they laid the foundations for monopolies that will now mean 
millions when a fractional increase is put on their products, and 
who make endowments of millions, "argued there was neither friend- 
ship nor feeling in traffic, and when [they] he got [their] his busi- 
ness enemy [competitor] in a hole [they] he squeezed him" (57:), 
that does not say that all are hypocrites, and that the Churches 
lacked "keynotes of teaching" enjoining "absolute honesty and jus- 
tice, coupled with brotherly love, kindness and mercy," any more 
so than that all are hypocrites who are members of this new mod- 
ern day Church simply because some of its members have proved 
themselves such. 

It is when one has personal dealings with any one that that 
one's true character is revealed. Is that not so? 

Don't think that I got out of bed wrong end to when I wrote 
this chapter. I simply stated facts as I have found and experi- 
enced them, and I have the material to prove every statement made 
in this chapter. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Chkistian Science — Concluded. 

That there are features in C. S. that are good I admit. One 
of them is the cultivation of cheerfulness, which is a good tonic for 
health. 

"We can deliberately cultivate cheerful states of feeling, and we 
can assist others to be happy. If all the world should adopt such a 
course of living, the occupation of doctors would be cut in two in- 
side of ten years" (162:172). 

The Bible also says that "A cheerful heart is a good medicine; 
but a broken spirit drieth up the bones" (Prov. 17:22). I know 
that to be true from my own experience and observation. It was 
not until I met with a serious disappointment that I began to 
wither and became susceptible to attacks from diseases. 

"Emotion has profound effects upon the body. * * * Emo- 
tion affects the appetite, the circulation of the blood, and the func- 
tions of nutrition and secretion. Some emotions are distinctly 
healthful, and others, when much indulged, are as distinctly un- 
wholesome. A cheerful state of mind tends to good digestion and 
to a good general tone of the system. * * * Again, not only is 
it true that indigestion tends to give one the blues, but also con- 
versely, that the blues tend to give one indigestion" (163:156). 

Is that not true in the main? My observation has been such 
that those who are given much to despondency — blues — and who 
dwell unnecessarily on past misfortunes and unpleasant chapters in 
their lives, are the ones who complain much about indigestion and 
stomach troubles. What they need is a new mental condition or 
state of mind, that will tend to direct their thoughts, not on them- 
selves — indulging them — but away from themselves. Now, that is 
what C. S. does, and in that lies its greatest power for healing so- 
called incurables, who are not maimed or crippled by accident. 

But can one not do that without believing their other teachings 
which outrage the senses, stultify the intellect, and blaspheme God? 
Which theory honors God most, my theory for the origin and cause 
of sin, evil, and misfortune, and the admission of the reality of 



431 

matter, sin, disease; true testimony of the senses, within the scope in 
which we have need of them; free-will, and an individual mind of 
our own, etc., as I have given it in this book, or the theory of C. S. 
that God is all and there is nothing for him to enter but Himself; 
the non-existence of matter; the deceitfulness of the senses; the 
hallucination of disease and sickness; the denial that man has an 
individual mind of his own, or a free-will; that God knows of no 
such thing as sin; that flesh is an illusion, yet God appointed Jesus 
in the flesh to speak God's word to human flesh; that marriage 
should continue until it is learned that generation rests on no sex- 
ual basis; that there is no finite soul, because no one ever saw one 
in the body, etc.? Yet it is claimed that "Christian Science does 
honor God, as no other theory honors Him" (109:479). But then 
that is. nothing. 

C. S. also makes other claims which will be about as far from 
being realized as some are from being true. Here is one of its claims 
which ought to cause the One Infallible Bible Church, or the Cath- 
olic Church, to look after its laurels: 

"The growth of the movement is beyond all precedent. [Ex- 
cepting Dowieism, if its literature is to be believed.] It has been 
estimated, judging by the past growth [Of back-sliding] and law of 
averages, that in fifteen years it will be larger than any other denom- 
ination in America, and in twenty-five years it will be larger than 
all other denominations combined. Why may we expect this growth 
to continue? Because Christian Science meets a universal human 
need" (58:188, Nov. 11, 1900). 

I question that statement, for the reason that the One Church, 
which will result from the reading of this book, will see to it that 
none of its members make the "intellect a dethroned king," and if 
it can do that, with its sanction of Scriptural injunction marriages, 
it ought to hold its own with its natural increase, as against C. S. 
with its "intellect a dethroned king," and its brother and sister 
relation marriages, when there will be no "counterfeits of creation" 
(109:573) — children — to fill up the vacancies caused by those who 
got a "belief" of passing on. Why, if that statement of C. S. should 
become true that "in twenty-five years it will be larger than all 
other denominations combined," and this ratio of increase should 
keep up, there would be no need of this: 

"Centuries will intervene before the statement of the ^nexhausti- 



432 

ble topics of that book [S. and H.] become sufficiently understood 
to be absolutely demonstrated" (124:92), [One of which will be that 
it will no longer be considered "foolish to stop eating" (109:387) 
for long before centuries could intervene these brother and sister 
relation marriages would leave the world in such a condition that 
there would be no individual minds [Which do not exist anyway,] 
left to understand the "inexhaustible topics" of S. and H. 

Of course there is one way in which such a condition of the 
world might be averted, even if these brother and sister relation 
marriages should become one of the "inexhaustible topics" [Until it 
is learned that generation rests on no sexual basis, let marriage 
continue" (109:274)] that should become sufficiently understood so 
as to be "absolutely demonstrated," and that is by using incubators. 
This thought came to me — whence its source I do not know, unless 
Grod is using me to be a rival of His nineteenth century "scribe" 
— after I read what God had indited for His "scribe" to transcribe 
which is "Until it is learned that generation rests on no sexual 
basis, let marriage continue," and that is that when a C. S. couple 
wanted a "counterfeit of creation," for the husband, if they wanted 
a boy, not to take a bath for ten days, and then take one, jDut the 
water he bathed in into a filter which would gather the excretions 
of the pores that could be put into a cajDSule and then put it into 
an incubator, using "powerful eloquence" as a generator. If they 
wanted a girl the wife to go through the same process as the hus- 
band did for a boy. In that way they could live under the same 
roof as a brother and sister and still have children. Or, what might 
be better, would be to mix the contents of the two capsules, put- 
ting it into one, then putting it into the incubator, go through the 
same process as for a separate capsule of a boy or a girl, with the 
result that there would be a neuter gender being, which, no doubt, 
would be the best kind after it is learned that generation rests on 
no sexual basis. Then might be realized the sweetness of the dis- 
appointed old henpeck's song which men used to sing in the old 
harvest days, a few words of which I can partly remember: 

"What a joy this world would be 

If the girls were transported beyond the Northern sea." 

As God did not "impel" me to set a price of a "startling sum" 
(184:61) on this bit of revelation I give it to C. S. gratuitously. 
I am not going to be like the Catholic Church which barters her 



433 

"Comforter" at from one dollar up to as much as one can afford to 
give. And is that not a Comfort to know how to have "counter- 
feits of creation" when husband and wife live together in the rela- 
tion of brother and sister? a. f. y. 

If Christian Scientists are consistent in their beliefs they cer- 
tainly cannot be offended in what I have just said, for if the "Soul,^ 
or Mind, of man is God" (109:198), it was just a case of God — Mind 
— entering Himself, when He entered what I erroneously believed 
was my own individual mind, therefore, it was He who spoke thus, 
I being simply a "scribe under orders" (124:311), who transcribed 
what God had indited, and they ought not to be offended in what 
God indites. Is that not so? 

Catholics also make the claim that in the future there will be 
more Catholics than all other denominations put together, according 
to this: 

"I do not profess to be a prophet, but in my vision there is 
seen in the future an entire people, who cover the land from Hat- 
teras to the Golden Gate, from Canada to Mexico, with foreheads 
signed with the sign of the cross, and who commune with the whole 
Catholic church" (28:129). 

Even Christology makes no less astounding claims: 

"As an expounder of the beautiful doctrine of Christology, I do 
not ask persons to leave their churches; I do not want them to leave 
their holy temples. They are missionaries in their churches for this 
truth. The time is coming, and it is coming rapidly, when every 
church will adopt this idea and heal the sick; and I predict that 
within twenty-five years — and I am willing to go on record on it — 
there will be no more medicine given to humanity. God's holy truth 
will effect the cures for everybody reposing faith in His healing 
power" (147:132, 133). 

Yet we are told that sickness and disease "do not and cannot 
exist" (147:32), because "God covers all, is all in all," therefore, they 
are but the "vaporings of material thought," and are false. 

Supposing that a Christologist or a Christian Scientist should 
ask God to heal one of a disease or a sickness that is only the 
vaporings of material thought, or is only an illusion or "hallucina- 
tion" (109:406), and God should say to one: 

"My child, if I am All, and the only Cause then how can you 
suffer even from a vaporing of material thought, or of an hallucin- 



434 

ation? You dishonor Me by making such claims. Know that the 
pain of disease or sickness is an alarm bell, a warning signal, that 
tells you that you are violating a law of Mine, and they are not, 
therefore, vaporings of material thought or hallucinations, but are 
the penalties I have attached to the violation of My law, just as 
the punishment a criminal suffers is the penalty attached for the 
violation of a law which he has violated. Say no more, then, that 
disease or sickness is not real, or that it is not, or never was, or 
never can be, for if you do I will regard it as an impeachment of 
My wisdom and as a blasphemy. Disease and sickness are of the 
'very good' things which I made, for how otherwise would the sen- 
sual husband or wife be true to the marriage bed or to each other 
if I had not made venereal disease a penalty that 'tears the black 
mask from the shameless brow of licentiousness'? But remember, 
I do not will, send, or decree you disease or sickness vindictively 
or arbitrarily. I have given you a reason, free-will, will-power, and 
power to do as you choose to, and if you violate a physical or moral 
law of Mine you will inevitably suffer, as a consequence, the penalty 
I have attached to a law for its violation. You will reap what you 
sow, and no 'jpowerful eloquence,' or confession, with a penance that 
would require a creature of Mine to hear over 46,000 petitions at 
one and the same time every second of time, or by 'coming to Je- 
sus' at the mourners' bench, can avert such a consequence." 

Supposing Grod should speak thus to a Christologist, or a Chris- 
tian Scientist, or a Dowieite, who claims all diseases and all sick- 
nesses are the work of that devil who tempted Lucifer to sin, or a 
Catholic, who believes Grod wills, sends, and decrees anyone, arbi- 
trarily, evil, disease and sickness, what answers could they make? 
None whatever. Is not then my theory for the origin and cause of 
evils a plain, reasonable, and comprehensible one, and one which 
exonerates and vindicate»s Grod? a. f. y. 

Now that we have switched into Christology a little let us see 
what more it has to say that is absurd, nonse»sical, and erroneous. 
"If a person wishes to have prosperity in his business affairs, 
what is the certain rule to adopt to have that? THINE IT, THINK 
IT. Never allow a doubt to come into your mind; know that God 
alone controls, and that He will give you prosperity. Suppose a 
person wants health. THINK HEALTH. Think of the impossi- 
bility of having anything but health, [Yet we can give this "im- 



435 

possibility" "heroic treatment." by putting nine healers on it] and 
cease to think of evil. Suppose a person wants happiness. [As, 
for instance, the wife of a drunken husband]. Let him think of 
pleasant surroundings, [As, for instance, a wife and children in 
rags, suffering hunger and cold on account of drunkenness] and 
how pleasant this must be. THINK IT. Kemember that the 
thought of a thing [As, for instance, lying in bed of a cold morn- 
ing and 'THINK' you see the fire kindling and lighting itself in 
the stove] is the prophecy of its fulfillment. 'As a man thinketh 
in his heart so is he'" (147:26). 

How rich, healthy, happy, and great orators, singers, and mu- 
sicians we would all be if our thinking of those things had been 
the "prophecy of its fulfillment?" 

When I think of the many air castles I built in thought, in 
my younger days, and see them all rudely shattered, I am led to 
believe that to "THINK" a thing does not bring it about. How 
was it with you? Likewise is it with everything else. It takes 
XDork to achieve anything. If one had only to think in his heart 
and he would be so, then one, who never studied music, could sit 
down to a piano and play the most difiicult piece of music put 
before him. Is that not so? But can he or anyone do it? The 
same rule applies to the orator, which C. S. says one can not be if 
one "thinketh" he can not be an orator "without study or a super- 
induced condition," that the body then "responds to this belief, and 
the tongue grows mute which before was eloquent" (109:255). 

"G-od being all there is no room for anything else" (147:31). 

If then He wants to do anything He probably "enters Him- 
self" like the God of C. S. does. 

"Everything in the world goes by its opposites. To material 
thought [Whence is 'material thought' if God is all, and 'there is 
no room for anything else?"] we have good and evil; light and 
darkness; water and fire; spirit and matter. Now, if we take good 
and evil, the evil is nothing, because good is all. [That is like the 
Christian Scientist already mentioned, who told me that the blow- 
ing of a man to atoms with giant powder was not real because 
nothing is real but good. There is not very much differenee, after 
all, between the 'Reformed' C. S. and the unreformed C. S., is 
there?] * * * Tou destroy fire by putting on the water. Spirit 
being all, and matter being its opposite, matter is nothing" (147:31). 



436 

I suppose by the same rule of logic by which he proved that 
fire is nothing, because put out by putting water on it, therefore, 
matter must be nothing. But is fire nothing because water put it 
out? How is it when fire dries a boiler that had only a little water 
in it and was left too long on the stove? Which is the nothing 
then? That illustration, to prove the nothingness of matter, is as 
weak and absurd as the illustration in C S., in which the "deceit- 
fulness of the senses" is proved by the barometer which points to 
fair weather "In the midst of murky clouds and drenching rain.' 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Here is something that if God is all, and "there is no room for 
anything else," then I do not see where it can come from, unless 
money is God: 

"Do you want money? Affirm that you love God with all your 
heart [Like the Catholic who says: "O My God, I love Thee above 
all things with my whole heart and soul" (43:83), and yet has to go 
to confession daily as priests are urged to go (49:140).] and ask Him 
to give you money, and the money will come to you as from the 
four corners of the earth. You will not know how it comes, but it 
will come" (147:252, 253). 

How foolish we have been for farming, digging and working for 
money, if all we had to do was to lie to God, by affirming that we 
love Him with all our hearts, and it would have come to us "as 
from the four corners of the earth." What "Heavenly principle" 
(157:11) Christology must be, indeed. 

Probably it is this "Heavenly principle" in Christology which 
tells one what to do when one wants money, and of which S. and 
H. gives no direct information that brought forth this: 

"When reading this volume, [Christology.] as I do every day, 
I think of the contrast between it and Mrs. Eddy's Science and 
Health. When I first began to read the latter book how I used to 
struggle with the involved and obscure style and statements, and 
mentally protested against the unnecessary hard task the authoress 
had set for her readers. I frequently said of Science and Health 
in those days, 'The writer of this seems to be afraid to tell the 
reader how to do anything for himself [As, for instance, how to 
make the money come "as from the four comers of the earth."] or 
others lest some teachers should fail to get $100 for class instruc- 
tion out of him. [Probably, for the reason, to give the C. S. D's. a 



437 

chance to regain the "startling sum" of $300 which they had to 
pay the "scribe" of God for a course of lessons, "lasting barely three 
weeks" (134:61).] I have been a reader of her books for the past 
several years; but now when I need help it remains closed [Ought 
to have used the key, which is, "Intellect is a dethroned king * * * 
it (S. and H.) expresses the logic of the heart, and not of the intel- 
lect" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900), and unlocked it.] and 'Christology' sup- 
plies my wants, in terse sentences [As, for instance, "The last wig- 
gle of the snake's tail" (147:69).] and frankness of statement, which 
it seems to me all can understand" (136:728, Sept. 1901). 

That Christology is, like C. S., suggestion, the objective or 
"material" mind speaking to the subjective mind, or soul, may be 
seen from the following treatment formula. 

"Personal Treatment Number 1. — I am the perfect image and 
likeness of God, living, moving, and having ray being in God, and 
am a spiritual Being residing in Spirit. This being true, I live in 
perfect harmony, in Heaven, in perfection, and have all the bless- 
ings that God gives to His children. Therefore, I have perfect 
health, perfect harmony, am covered with God's love, supplied by 
His goodness, protected by His power, and guided by His wisdom. 
God is omnipresent good and an ever-present help in time of trouble. 
God is with me, and He is with me now. He is my help, and His 
truth is my shield and buckler. I do dwell in the secret places of 
the Most High, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The 
Lord is my refuge and my fortress, and in Him do I trust abso- 
lutely and implicitly, without doubt, without hesitation, without 
misgiving, and without fear. I have no fear, my life is perfect, and 
I love God with all my heart, and perfect love casteth out fear. I 
have no fear and can not have any; there is no such thing as fear, 
it is but the evil manifestation of carnal mind; but on the contrary, 
I have perfect trust, perfect reliance, perfect dependence, and per- 
fect faith in God. I have perfect understanding, and know that 
God is Spirit and that I am His image and likeness; therefore, I 
know that my life is a spiritual life and not a material life. I know 
that Spirit is ALL, and that matter is transitory and amounts to 
nothing for God is ALL, and God is Spirit, therefore Spirit is all. 
This being true, I living, moving, and having my being in God, am 
perfect, and in the enjoyment of all perfection. My heart and mind 
are filled with joy, with peace, with contentment, with ease, with 



438 

comfort, and with perfect satisfaction, I am perfectly happy. God 
is with me, watching over me and taking care of me, and sustain- 
ing me in all things, and under all conditions and under all cir- 
cumstances. He guides my every footstep, my every thought, and 
every act. He supplies all my necessities, and gives me perfect 
harmony. God being. with me, I am filled with the righteousness 
of the Kingdom of Heaven" (147:150, 151). 

Is there anything in that but a soliloquy, auto-suggestion? 

"The time occupied in giving a treatment cannot be measured 
in minutes. It depends upon the realization of the healer and the 
receptivity [Passivity, in plain 'law of suggestion'] of the patient" 
(147:42). 

What is that, and "powerful eloquence;" and "You are well, 
and you know it" (124:220), but suggestion and auto-suggestion? 

If Christologists and Christian Scientists would read books on 
psychic phenomena they would soon see that their systems have 
the "law of suggestion" mixed in with it. But they, or at least the 
Christian Scientists, are as bigoted and narrow-minded as any Catho- 
lic can be. 

One time I had an argument with a Christian Scientist, telling 
her that C. S. had in it an element of suggestion and auto-suggestion, 
and told her if she would, read certain books, which I mentioned 
to her, she would soon see that my contention was true. She said 
she did not read anything but the newspapers, and C. S. literature 
because she knew C. S. is the Truth. That is like the Catholic 
who knows his Church is the true Church, therefore does not care 
to read about any religion but his own, an answer which was once 
made in my hearing when one was asked if one had ever read Rev. 
Sheldon's book, "In His Steps." 

Any one who has ever read "In His Steps, or What Would 
Jesus Do?" knows that that book speaks of no particular Church, 
simply speaking about what would Jesus do in certain circum- 
stances in which one may find oneself at times. 

But then I was that way once myself, and it was only after I 
had passed through a period of intense suffering, and was given 
the book to read, already referred to, called the "Prodigal Son'" 
which gave so harrowing an account of the damned in hell forever, 
that I was willing to doubt and question the statement that the 
Catholic Church is the true Church. Well, you know the result of 



439 

that doubting and questioning. So likewise would it be with Chris- 
tian Scientists and Catholics and some others, if they would be 
willing to read literature other besides their own, also; they would 
be led to make the same discovery that I made, that is, that C. S. 
and Catholicism have many errors in their teachings, as has been 
pointed out already in this book. 

As I have also had experiences with regard to inateria medica 
in my sicknesses and my recoveries with and without it, I believe 
I am better able to deal with the subject of C. S. than one would 
be who never had those experiences. And besides, I have no par- 
ticular Church to offer as a substitute for C. S. as some have had 
who attempted to "expose" and destroy and check C. S. The writ- 
ers of the article entitled "Christian Science Humbug. Father — 
Exposure of the Senseless Teachings of Mrs. Eddy" (53:), and of 
the book entitled "Mrs. Eddy and Bob Ingersoll; or Christian 
Science Tested," had the incubus of the Catholic Church weighing 
them down, and which they wanted to substitute in place of C S. 
Well, we know that the Protestant world has no extra great love 
for Catholicism, therefore, representatives of her, who want to foist 
the Catholic religion on the readers of their works "exposing" C. S. 
would not be very likely to succeed in either of their undertakings 
by attempting to expose C. S. 

Besides the two writings, just mentioned, written against C. S., 
I have read others among which are "Crazes, Credulities and Chris- 
tian Science," written by a doctor, a profession, as I have shown, 
which has not very much to boast of itself; "Christian Science and 
Other Superstitions" by an LL. D.; the pamphlet of Mr. Peabody, 
already quoted from; "Christian Science Exposed; as an Anti-Chris- 
tian Imposture," by Dr. Dowie, who neglected the opportunity to 
demonstrate the superiority of his system over that which he was 
going to "expose," when he had to re-deliver that lecture because 
his "stenographer became very sick on January 12th, when I deliv- 
ered it in this place. He had to suspend writing about the middle 
of it" (64:3). Why did he not heal his stenographer, so he could 
have continued writing to the end of the lecture? That is like the 
physician who had npt enjoyed good health for the past fifteen 
years, yet continued in active practice [burying his mistakes and 
then sending, like a certain doctor once did, a bill to the widow "for 
doctoring your husband until he died."] up to within six months of 



i 



440 

his death. He could heal others — or thought he could — but not 
himself. The same is it with Dr. Dowie. He can heal others — or 
thinks he can — but could not heal his own stenographer in the pres- 
ence of a large audience, who could have testified of the miraculous 
healing powers of Dr. Dowie had he healed him in their presence. 

I also read a pamphlet by a Christian minister, from which I 
will quote. This pamphlet was given me by a priest when I was 
bedridden, and after I had had an argument with him on C. S. and 
had given up the investigation of it in order to quiet the minds of 
my people on that subject. The i^riest probably thought that any- 
thing against C. S. would be all right to give to me no matter what 
else it might contain. 

This is what is contained in that pamphlet, given me to read 
by the priest and which I returned to him after reading it, but of 
which I bought a copy of my own after I was able to go down 
town. 

"Nor would I deny that many cures have been wrought by those 
who practice according to this | C. S.] occult school of thought. As 
much might truly be claimed for the hypnotist, the magnetic healer, 
even the traveling fakir. Catholic shrines (All italics are mine) 
have witnessed many seemingly 7narvelous cures^ but the loorld is 
not yet ready to believe that the finger hone of some medieval monk, 
[Saint.] or a hair [Relic of a Saint.] from the head of some Italian 
of a thousand years ago, has heen made the repository of the healing 
grace of Ood'' (163:4). 

Do you not think that the latter part of that quotation ought 
to cause a doubt in the thinking mind as to the teachings of the 
Catholic church on the efficacy of the relics of the Saints, in any 
department whatever? Yet the priest was willing to risk that pro- 
vided the rest of the pamphlet would turn me away from C. S. 

But it did not; for there were some things in it which made 
me hold to C. S. as against the claims of the minister, one of which 
is this: 

"Great stress is laid by Christian Scientists upon the Scripture 
passages which seem to justify their pretended power to heal. The 
favorite one with them is Mark 16:17, 18: 'And these signs shall 
follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; 
they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; 
and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they 



441 

shall lay hands [Which they do not do now since C. S. has discov- 
ered that that is not necessary in suggestion.] on the sick, and they 
shall recover.' It seems plain upon a careful reading of these words, 
with their context, that this promise was given to the apostles, and 
not to all believers" (163:4). 

And is that so? Did the Apostles go "into all the world and 
preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15), when America 
was not discovered until about fourteen hundred years after the 
days of the Apostles? And does it not say further that "these signs 
shall accompany them that believe?" It does not say that it shall 
accompany you^ but them.^ And who is meant by them? It means 
all those who are baptized and believe, does it not? And if it does, 
and God is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and man has 
been man from the beginning, then lohy should things be possible 
to man at one time and not at another under the same conditions? 

To say that the Church needed extraordinary testimony in order 
to get it to take root, is an argument which I have already refuted 
in another chapter, where I showed that there are about twenty- 
two times as many people to-day without Christ as was the popu- 
lation of the known world in the beginning of the Christian era. 
That is a poor argument to use against C. S. to say the signs in 
Mark 16: 17, 18: was a promise given "to the Apostles, and not to 
all believers," is it not? 

That would, also, be a poor argument to use against the "Church 
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," for it seems it takes the 
same view of those signs as C. S. does. 

"If he that believeth and is baptized in our day shall be saved, 
and if he that believeth not in our day shall be damned, then these 
signs follow them that believe in our day. That commission con- 
tains the unchangeable conditions of salvation, for there is no pro- 
vision made in the Scriptures for a change in those conditions, or 
in the blessings which were promised by the Savior to those who 
should obey His gospel. * * * Christ places the preaching, the 
believing, the salvation, and the signs that were to follow, all on an 
equal footing. Where one was limited, the other must be; where 
one ceases the other did. If the language limits these signs to the 
Apostles, it limits faith and salvation also to them. * * * If 
this commission limits those signs to the first age or ages of Chris- 
tianity, then it limits salvation to the first ages of Christianity. 



442 

* * * And as well might we say that preaching of the gospel 
is no longer needed; faith is no longer needed; salvation is no longer 
needed; they were only given at first to establish the gospel, as to 
say these signs are no longer necessary, they were only given at 
first to establish the gospel" (125:53, 54). 

What do you say to that? I suppose the Mormon has the best 
of the argument, has he not? a. f. y. I suppose Dr. Dowie believes 
those signs were not meant only for the Apostles, either. But if 
the Bible is true in every word and in every syllable then the Mor- 
mons, Dowieites, and the Christian Scientists have the best of the 
argument, have they not? 

Of course, those passages of Mark 16:17, 18 are fatal to the 
teachings of C. S. when we take a second look at them, and which 
has been pointed out by the minister. He says, "Granting that this 
promise was for all believers, it yet remains true that Jesus' clearly 
declares that devils, or demons, tongues, serpents, poison and sick- 
ness are real, and not imaginary, and thus the passage cannot be 
honestly used to sustain the claims of Christian Science" (163:5). 

That is true, is it not? Now, how will C. S. get around that? 
It believes in no devils, evil spirits, nor in the reality of poison or 
sickness. If that passage is true, does any one, with whom the 
intellect is not a dethroned king, believe that Jesus told the Apos- 
tles of things which did not exist? Hardly? C. S. cannot get 
around it by saying it "interprets the sacred writings spiritually, 
and not materially" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900). and that it means the 
leprosy of the soul, — for it does not believe in finite souls, — and 
not the sickness of the physical body. 

When a healer began to treat me I was asked how my bowels 
and kidneys worked, and is that the way to heal the soul by ask- 
ing how bowels and kidneys work? Does this not prove that my 
statement is true, that I might have been asked how my bowels 
and kidneys worked: "When treating a patient who is not diseased 
in every organ 'it is not Science to include in this treatment every 
organ in the body" (160:25)? And is that the way to heal the 
leprosy of the mind — as C. S. says there is no soul, we will call it 
mind— by treating only the organs of the body which are believed 
to be diseased? / 

But the question now is, is that passage true? If demons are 
beings with substances like those of the angels, and of men, 



443 

without the trammels of the flesh, then how can a devil — ^let alone 
devils — enter the man without displacing the substance of man? 
Or how can water be poured into a jar already full with water 
without displacing the water already in the jar? Does it not begin 
to dawn upon your mind that the devils and demons spoken 
of in the Scriptures cannot mean personal beings, such as ortho- 
doxy teaches, and that they must mean something else? Or else 
they are interpolations by men, in grossly superstitions ages, with 
which to frighten the credulous into subjection to their rule? I 
prefer the latter theory in view of the fact that it did not require 
a personal devil to tempt Lucifer to sin, who is supposed to have 
been the first devil. And if Lucifer could sin without a devil to 
tempt him then we can do the same, and in that case there is no 
need of a personal devil, and if no devil how can he be cast out of 
any one, especially so, when he could not enter without displacing 
the substance, soul of man? And if there is no devil, such as or- 
thodoxy teaches, then is it not about time to revise the Bible and 
purge from it those blasphemous passages about the devil? 

With the exception of the statement that the following of signs 
was a promise which "was given to the apostles, and not to all 
believers," the pamphlet containing that statement, is a telling one 
against C. S., so far as it went, and I believe the best I ever read 
as showing up the real nature of C. S. 

As I believe I have covered about all the points in it against 
C. S. I will not now make any more quotations from that pamph- 
let. Knowing that all the works written against C. S. have had no 
appreciable effect on C. S., unless it was to drive more people than 
ever to investigate it, I decided to cover the whole field, which I 
think I did. I know of no fundamental principle in C. S. that I 
have not thoroughly analyzed and proved, with the "arms of the 
intellect" — a God-given faculty — in connection with my experiences 
in and out of C. S., as I have given in this book, and from its 
literature, that it is erroneous, absurd, and, in some instances, 
blasphemous, besides being full of contradictions. 

As I said in the beginning of this subject that I do not ex- 
pect to convince a Christian Scientist of the fact that C. S. is full 
of errors, inconsistencies, absurdities, contradictions and blasphemies, 
but I do believe that I have made that fact so patent to non-Christian 



444 

Scientists that none will ever be "bumboozled" by it after once 
reading this book. 

Because its literature says that C. S. is a psychology of the 
heart and not of the intellect, making "intellect a dethroned king" 
(137:188, Nov. 11, 1900), and having made much of it in considering 
C. S., I do not want any one to think for a moment that I regard 
Christian Scientists as insane or a lot of lunatics, any more so than 
that I should regard the Catholics as such, simply because a good 
Catholic "throws his intellect under the feet of faith" (5:409). 
Making the intellect a dethroned king, or throwing it under the feet 
of faith, means the same thing, and does not mean that that makes 
one insane or a lunatic, — although I might have had reasons to be- 
lieve such was the case with the Christian Scientist who said that 
the blowing to atoms of a man, with giant powder, was no reality 
because good only is real, — but it means pulling the wool over one's 
eyes, as it is called, so that one may not see facts which one does 
not want to see. That is all it means. 

I did the same thing up to my thirty-seventh year of age- 
But I found that it is so much more in accordance with God's de- 
sign to use the noble faculty of the intellect that I intend to use 
it instead of making it a dethroned king, or throwing it under the 
feet of blind, erroneous, unreasonable, and incomprehensible faith. I 
cannot help it if both of these churches, which subordinate the 
intellect to inferior faculties, do claim they are built on the Rock, 
Christ, I believe God is above them, therefore, I intend to use the 
intellect whenever and wherever I can. 

One of those churches is built largely, anyway, on the purported 
revelations and visions of so-called Saints, who, if they lived nowa- 
days, might give the probate judge something to do to earn his sal- 
ary, and the other church on inditements of God mostly in the form 
of Quimbyism, which followed so closely on Mr. Quimby's death. 

The author herself says: 

"It was after Mr. Quimby's death, that I discovered, in 1866, 
[Quimby died in 1865.] the momentous facts relating to Mind and 
its superiority over matter, and named my discovery Christian Sci- 
ence" (124:379). 

Can that be called a "discovery" which God indites and impels 
one to "set a price" of "three hundred dollars * * * for each 



445 

pupil in one course of lessons * * * — a startling sum for tuition 
lasting barely three weeks" (134:61)? 

She also sajs: 

"Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Chris- 
tian Science or Metaphysical Healing was gained in 1866. * * * 
He was an uneducated man; but he was a distinguished mesmerist, 
and personally manipulated his patients. This I know, having been 
one of them" (139.6, 7); also, "When first teaching Mental Science I 
permitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that this could 
harm or hinder the spiritual direction of thought" (139,415); also, 
"In 1866, * * * God revealed to me this risen Christ" (124: 
179, 311); also, "I was a scribe under orders; and who can refrain 
from transcribing what God indites * * * (124:179,311)? also, 
"The Bible was my sole teacher" (139:8); also, "For some twelve 
months, when I was about eight years old, I repeatedly heard a 
voice, calling me distinctly by name, three times, in an ascending 
scale, I thought it was my mother's voice, and sometimes went to 
her, beseeching her tell me what she wanted. Her answer was 
always: 'Nothing, child! What do you mean?' Then I would say: 
'Mother, who d.d call me? I heard somebody call Mary, three times!' 
This continued until I grew discouraged, and my mother was per- 
plexed and anxious. * * * That night, [Of the day when her 
cousin visiting her had heard the voice, also.] before going to rest, 
my mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little Samuel, and 
bade me, when the voice called again, to reply as he did, 'Speak, 
Lord; for thy servant heareth.' The voice came; but I was afraid, 
and did not answer. Afterwards 1 wept, and prayed that God would 
forgive me, resolving to do, next time as my mother had bidden me. 
When the call came again I did answer, in the words of Samuel, 
but never again to the material senses was that mysterious call re- 
peated" (134:7-9). 

Here God called her when about eight years old, yet He with- 
held his inditements from her until she was about fifty years old, 
revealing them to her the year after Mr. Quimby's death, and then 
left her in ignorance, that if she manipulated her patients, as Mr, 
Quimby did, "that this could harm or hinder the spiritual direction 
of thought." 

Only those who have pulled the wool over their eyes cannot see 
in the quotations, just given, that C. S. is only a human invention 



446 

and that God had no more to do with it than He had with preserv- 
ing the Jewish High-Priests from error, or with commanding the 
Israelites ^;o exterminate the Canaanites, or with preserving from 
error the Popes any more than you or I. 

When a Pope says that "Christ is not put on except by the fre- 
quentation of the Eucharistic table," or recommends the spread of 
the devotion to the Rosary, which is a prayer that would require the 
one to whom it is principally addressed to hear over 46,000 petitions 
simultaneously, every second of time from one end of the year to the 
other, are those not errors? Who but those with the wool pulled 
over their eyes will not see these facts? 

C. S. and Catholicism would make a good team would they 
not when it comes to "bumboozling" their followers into believing 
that their teachings rest on the Rock Christ? a. f. y. 

C. S. says, "The time for thinkers has come" (109:VII), but 
how can people think if they have no individual minds of their 
own, and the intellect is a dethroned king? I would like for C S. 
to give an intelligible answer to that. What was it but intellect 
than enabled me to perceive or discern the errors in the -Catholic 
Church? And what was it but intellect, even though it is but a 
poor quality, that led me to the discovery that C. S. has likewise 
many errors, absurdities, and blasphemies? And am I to dethrone 
it or throw it under the feet of faith? What answer could I make 
to God, then, if He should one day ask me why I abused the 
noble faculty of the intellect, with which He endowed me, and 
human beings? 

As well might a man stop up his ears, or destroy his eyesight, 
or cut ofp his hand, because he does not want to use them, and 
he would no more dishonor God or impeach His wisdom and de- 
sign by doing that than he would for dethroning the intellect, or 
for throwing it under foot. Let us all then use our intellects in- 
stead of dethroning them, or throwing them under the feet, or do 
with them as Luther did when he said: "I reject reason, common 
sense, carnal arguments, and mathematical proofs"' (15:415), and 
if we use them rightly then, no doubt, these religions of human 
invention, which requires us to dethrone the intellect, to throw it 
under foot, and to reject it, in order to believe in their erroneous, 
absurd; nonsensical, idolatrous, superstitions, and blasphemous doc- 
trines and teachings, will come to naught for want of support, and 



447 

there will then arise, from their smouldering ruins, One Church 
that recognizes the existence of God, the nobility of of His crea- 
ture — man, and living on one plane at a time, living the religion 
of humanity of Jesus, which is summed up in Matthew 25 -,34-45. 

Is that a too visionary consummation to be hoped for? I do not 
think it is if we will but put our heads together and use a little 
common sense, reason and understanding. Let us then put our 
heads together and see what we can accomplish. 

This work might have ended here if only the believing people 
are to join hands and bring about a union of the Churches, or 
Christian Unity, but as many would, probably who are now atheists, 
agnostics, or infidels, like to join hands with the believers, they 
cannot consistently do so for they want things proved by science, 
first, before they should join hands with the believers, and they 
yet feel or believe that science and religion are at variance with 
each other, therefore, they feel they must remain outside, and for 
this reason the work will be continued. 

In the following chapters I will attempt to prove, with the 
"arms of the intellect," that some of the teachings of science are 
erroneous, "silly," and more stultifying to the intellect than the 
teachings of theology on the same subjects. A notable one of these 
is, that evolution can account for the origin of some things on the 
theory of development and transmutation as against that of sjDecial 
creation. 

I will attempt to show that special creation, the way I will 
define it, presents fewer difficulties than the theory of evolution. 
I will also attempt to answer some of the most difficult questions 
that unbelievers like to harp on, and which theologians, who are 
loaded down with the incubus of an Infallible Church or an 
Infallible Bible, cannot very well answer. But as I am not fet- 
tered in any way, have no unreasonable and incomprehensible doc- 
trines to defend, I will be freer to use the "arms of the intellect" 
in answering them, and can, therefore, direct my battering rams 
with greater force against their theories and questions, than could 
those who are fettered in any way. 



r 



CHAPTEK XIX. 



Evolution and Special Creation. 

As volumes could be written on either of the subjects under 
this caption, it would, indeed, be a futile attempt to review the sub- 
jects in the space which will be devoted to them in this book, if I 
were to attempt to review all the minor points in connection with 
them, with the view of refuting all of them, therefore, I will attack 
a few links in them and if these links can be broken then the whole 
chain must fall. 

I will attempt to prove, with the "arms of the intellect," that 
Evolution, as an hypothesis for the origin of living beings and 
vegetation, as elaborated by difPerent writers who uphold that the- 
ory, is untenable, presents more dif&culties, and is more stultifying 
to the reason and intellect than is the hypothesis of Special Crea- 
tion such as I will postulate it. I will attempt to turn the tables 
on the advocates of Evolution and show that, instead of being "silly" 
(164:110, Vol. 1) for rejecting it, it would be silly to accept it 

Evolution would rule out design — hence, God — from the universe 
and "substitute everywhere unconscious causes acting from neces- 
sity, for conscious purposive causes" (80:17, Vol. 1), and to "eternal, 
iron laws of nature" which "have taken his place" (60:260, 261). 

Of course they do not tell us who enacted these "eternal, iron 
laws of nature" which are "unconscious." It is all "blind chance." 

"Since impartial study of the evolution of the world teaches us 
that there is no definite aim and no special purpose to be traced 
in it, [As, for instance, our eyes and ears,] there seems to be no 
alternative but to leave everything to 'blind chance' " (60:273), 
which seems to be about as powerful a thing as the "mortal mind" 
of C. S., that does not exist, yet can create beliefs. 

When, two steel rails — "eternal, iron laws" for a train to follow 
— connect two cities and trains run over the rails from one city to 
the other we know that these steel rails came into existence by 
"unconscious causes acting from necessity" in obedience to the 
mandates of "blind chance." To believe that a conscious being with 
a mind — man — had surveyed the route, leveled the hills, filled the 



449 

low places, bridged the streams, laid the ties and the rails with a 
"definite aim and * * * special purpose," would not be show- 
ing such marks of "the highest intellectual progress," as is shown 
by ruling out "the three central dogmas of metaphysics — God, free- 
dom, and immortality" (60:232). 

You now see how those two steel rails came to exist between 
two cities. It was all "blind chance." So likewise is it with the 
evolution of the world, the planets in their orbits, moving with'math- 
ematical precision, the vegetation on the earth, the senses — eyes, ears, 
etc., — of man, the male and the female, etc., all exist as the result of 
"unconscious causes" or "blind chance." But do you believe in 
sueh "intellectual progress"? Hardly, unless you are only a step 
removed from giving the probate judge something to do to earn 
his salary. 

In the main, the theory of Evolution is so absurd that were 
it not for the fact that some of the essential doctrines of Chris- 
tianity have been undermined in this book, and will thus furnish 
material to unbelievers with which to taunt Christians with "I 
told you so," that this or that doctrine was an error, idolatry, and 
superstition, I would not waste any time or space to it, but to 
show that unbelievers who eulogize Darwin, Haeckel, Ingersoll, et al. 
have nothing to boast of, and that they could likewise be taunted 
with "I told you so," that this or that theory was without foun- 
dation, and therefore on error false, if anyone choseto do so. 

When the score is even then neither side has gained or lost 
anything in their combat with each other. And this is what I 
intend to prove, so that both sides will be ready to put past diffi- 
culties, wranglings, contentions, quibblings, and ill-feelings aside, 
extend the hand of forgiveness and fellowship *to each other, and 
together strive to make this world a better place to live in. All of us 
have to sojourn on this plane of existence once anyway, therefore 
let us try to make it as agreeable for one another as we possibly 
can, and not wait until one has passed on and then "have pity on 
me at least you, my friend" and try to help one when we have no 
assurance that we can prevent or "influence" immutable law from 
carrying out its provisions. 

Do right here and then there will be no question of being 
right in another plane of existence when once yon get started right 
here. 



450 

That there is a purpose and aim in the universe for our 
existence here is not to be questioned when we admit that God is 
wisdom and does nothing without a purjDose. Therefore, let us live 
here, while we are here, as though we understood why Grod should 
have put us on this plane and not elsewhere, and that He wants 
us to be as happy here as though we were on another plane of ex- 
istence, just as a human parent would want his child to be happy 
whether at home or away from home. This teaching of theology 
that we cannot be perfectly happy here, because it is not our 
home, that we are, as it were, a wanderer here, impeaches God's 
wisdom and design, and gives unbelievers a pretext for denying the 
existence of a wise, intelligent, and living Being, a Designer — God. 
: We have now come to the point where we admit the existence 
of a universe designed by God for a definite aim and a special 
purpose. Now, the question is. Can we prove it? 

In order to prove it we must then assume that there was a time 
when nothing existed but God. Science, at a first glance, no doubt 
will say that that is impossible, for if there was a time once when 
nothing existed but God — Who existed from eternity — then from 
what did He make the universe, for it is an axiom of science that 
"from nothing, nothing comes." If science were consistent in what 
it professes then it could not advocate '"eternal, iron laws" or "spon- 
taneous generation" (80:30, Vol. 2) of life in a lifeless substance of 
a structureless mass called a Moneron, in the sea. But why does 
science say that from nothing, nothing comes, when it suits its pur- 
pose, especially the science. of the atheists and unbelievers? It wants 
to lead people to believe that as from nothing, nothing comes the 
matter that the universe is made of is eternal, uncreated, therefore 
there is no God, and if no God over and above all things then there 
is no moral order and if no moral nature why then one may commit 
anything one wants to just so that one does not get caught. 

It would eventually result in a world of educated people with- 
out a conscience. If you have read the works of atheists of the past 
centuries you know then the moral codes they have taught, and what 
their fruits have been. But that is not the point I want to make 
against science, the morals of some of the advocates of the non-ex- 
istence of God. The jooint is, Is there a Ood over and above all 
things Who has the power to bring forth something where before 
there was nothing? 



451 

Science says that because matter cannot be annihilated that it 
must therefore be eternal, uncreated. Because man cannot annihi- 
late matter does that say Grod cannot do it if He wanted to? I have 
already stated in another chapter why man cannot annihilate mat- 
ter, and that is because if man could annihilate matter he could in 
time annihilate the universe. Even before much of the universe 
were annihilated, could man annihilate matter, he would have caused 
a vacuum into which bodies and planets would rush, causing chaos. 
Is that not so? 

We have then a sane reason for, lohy man cannot annihilate mat- 
ter, have we not? If then we have such a reason, does it seem less 
thinkable why God should create matter than it is to think that 
matter is not eternal, because little, finite man cannot annihilate it? 
Yet a supposedly great thinker said: 

"The annihilation of Matter is unthinkable for the same reason 
that the creation of Matter is unthinkable" (127:182). 

These great thinktsrs want to limit God's power to that of His 
creature — man, and that is why some things are "unthinkable" to 
them. Another "great thinker" said: 

"The universe, according to my idea, [Another f)erson's idea is, 
probably, not to be regarded.] is, always was, and forever will be. It 
did not 'come into being;' it is the one eternal being — [Hence 
no eternal God, the universe being the only '•'■one eternal being."] 
the only thing that ever did, does or can exist" (165:253). 

Another thinker says matter is eternal substance because he 
says: 

"It is found that matter, though changeable, is indestructible — 
not a particle can be put out of existence. [For the reason which 
I gave for why man cannot annihilate matter.] Hence Nature de- 
clares that matter is eternal substance, [C. S. says it is God, hence 
He enters Himself when He changes from wood into smoke, etc.] 
and could not have sprung [Of course not. for to spring is differ- 
ent from creating by Divine power.] from nothing. The creation 
of matter implies the bringing of something into existence from 
nothing^ which proposition no healthy mind can for a moment en- 
tertain" (166:36). 

My mind must be unhealthy then, for I do "entertain" the 
proposition that Omnipotent power — God — can bring something to 
exist where before there was nothing. What led me to believe in 
that proposition was this: 



452 

" 'The word was made flesh.' It is distinctly stated that the 
word, as here used, and in this exact connection, 'was God,' and 
yet it was 'made flesh.' This seems positive proof that a part of 
God's substance or word became the flesh of Christ's body, which 
* * * (is) as physical and material as any man's body. Unless 
this text is met, and we see no way to meet it, it follows that God 
could just as well condense a part of His word or substance into a 
world as into a human body" (167:52). 

As the thought had already come to me, which I have already 
mentioned in another chapter, that the Word which "was made 
flesh" was not a substance of the flesh of Jesus, but was simply 
a making material — flesh, the Word of God, just as this book is 
my thought — word, made material, leaving me the same as though 
my word had not been made material — a book, I saw that I could 
meet that text, which being met undermines the proposition that 
"God could just as well condense a part of His word or substance 
into a world as into a human body." 

After I read that then the teachings also of Theosophy became 
undermined that ''all that exists is but varied difPerentiation of the 
one all-pervading Spiritual Essence" (143:4), and of Swedenborg 
that "the universe * * =*= which is God's image, and conse- 
quently full of God, could be created only in God from God; for 
God is Esse itself, and from Esse must be whatever is. To create 
what is, from nothing which is not, is a direct contradiction" (167:24). 

These believers would limit the power of God just the same 
as the unbelievers would. But my unhealthy (?) mind could not 
accept the proposition of those who believe the universe is God 
condensed, nor that of those who believe the universe is eternal, 
and as there was no other alternative left for me I had to fall into 
the trap of "superstition," and show want of "intellectual progress," 
by being forced, by the light of reason, to believe in the omnipo- 
tence of a living, intelligent, and powerful Being — God, who could 
create matter and make it subject to Him. I was forced to that 
conviction after reading various works which tried to prove that 
there is no God and that, therefore, matter was self-existent and eter- 
nal. But somehow my "presumptuous ignorance," which could not 
accept forever the teachings of the Catholic Church and the C. S. 
Church, could also not forever accept the "verbiage" of the "great 
thinkers" and of the collossal monuments of "intellectual progress." 



453 

It may now be asked if I believe that God created, as it is 
recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, everything in six days of 
twenty -four hours each? Knowing that God had the power to do 
that, if He wanted to, yet, in observing that everything seems to 
take place according to His immutable laws, He did not create 
everything In six days anymore so than He now creates anything 
in an instant. There are some things in Evolution and science 
which I concede, just as there are some things in Catholicism, 0. 
S., the Bible, etc., which I concede, but not all things that are 
found in them, so likewise I do not concede all that Evolution and 
science would have us believe. 

Admitting that at one time there existed nothing but God — 
He being the one eternal Being — and that He, being a free-will 
Being, such as we are, chose to make Himself manifest to finite 
beings, how did He proceed in doing it? Just as science says, by 
filling infinite space with a primal matter or substance called "nebu- 
lae" (60:240) from which all cosmic bodies were formed by a con- 
densation of this nebulae. It was right here in admitting this 
nebulae, which was the first step to be taken in forming the uni- 
verse, that led me to ask, If there was no power behind this nebu- 
lae what would cause it to condense, then? 

If one fills a jar, let us say, with pure water, seals it air tight, 
and puts it in a cool place would it ever condense itself? Would 
it, of itself, condense into different bodies of various sizes? If not, 
how then would the nebulae condense itself into the different bodies 
of various sizes such as the universe is composed of if there was 
no conscious, intelligent power back of it? What was it that de- 
fined the sizes of the various bodies and placed them in fixed orbits? 
Surely no sane person, unless his brain is befogged with liquor and 
tobacco, would say that it was "blind chance." As well might a 
person toss a handful of type into the air and expect it to fall in 
such a way as to spell out correctly, in printer's style, an item of 
news, as to expect universal nebulae to condense itself into worlds 
without an intelligent, conscious and omnipotent Being to cause it 
to condense thus. 

Of course science would answer that it can "trace the splendid 
variety of orderly tendencies of the organic world to mechanical, 
natural causes" (60:258). 

But did you ever see a machine that turned out "mechanically" 



454 

a miscellaneous lot of four, six, eight, ten and forty penny nails at 
one and the same time from the same substance? It may be seen 
then, that the argument of "mechanical, natural causes" as an expla- 
nation for the orderly tendencies of the organic world is one that is 
not tenable. We have no alternative then but to admit that there 
is an intelligent, conscious, and omnipotent Being who was the arch- 
itect and cause for the different bodies of various sizes, of the uni- 
verse, to be formed from the universal nebulae which filled infinite 
space at the beginning of creation. 

And now that we see that there is a God Who can mould neb- 
ulae into mineral, vegetable, and organic worlds then we must assume 
that nebulae is not eternal, but was created by God, for how other- 
wise could one eternal thing be subject to another eternal thing, if 
both were eternal? It is seen then that matter, or nebulae in 
primitive state, had to be a creation of God in order to be subject 
to Him, and could not therefore have been self-existent, uncreated, 
eternal. 

If now these two propositions are fairly well established, that 
there is a God and that matter was created by Him, what view may 
we now take of the creation of living beings on this earth r" Shall 
it be according to Evolution or according to Special Creation? 
Does not the science of geology tell us that "our planet was, at 
some remote period, in a molten or fluid state, by reason of the 
intense heat of its matter" (168:76)? 

If such was the case once with this earth it certainly must 
have been the same with other planets at one time, and if so, where 
were the germs that could afterwards spontaneously generate life 
on this earth or on any other planet? Would not the intense heat 
have destroyed any life germs had they existed prior to the time 
that the earth became a molten mass? And if so, how could life 
then originate on this earth if "from nothing, nothing comes?" If 
unbelieving scientists want to be consistent with their professions 
of axioms that "from nothing, nothing comes," and that "like be- 
gets like," then how will they answer the question for the origin 
of life and for the different organic beings? We will first see what 
"intellectual progress" has to say for the origin of life. 

"In the definite, limited sense in which I maintain spontaneous 
generation and assume it as a necessary hypothesis in explanation 
of the first beginnings of life upon the earth, it merely implies the 



455 

origin of Monera from inorganic carbon compounds. When ani- 
mated bodies first uppeared on our planet, previously without life, 
there must in the first place, have been formed, by a process purely 
chemical, from purely inorganic carbon combinations, that very com- 
plex nitrogenized carbon compound which we call plasson, or 'primi- 
tive slime,' and which is the oldest material substance in which all 
vital activities are embodied. In the lowest depths of the sea such 
homogeneous amorphous protoplasm probably still lives, in its sim- 
plest character, under the name of Bathybius. Each individua 
particle of this structureless mass is called a Moneron. The oldest 
Moneron originated in the sea by spontaneous generation, [From 
nothing, nothing comes, yet here something came from nothing even 
without an omnipotent power] just as crystals form in the matrix. 
This assumption is required by the demand of the human under- 
standing ['Intellectual progress'] for causality. [It would be 'super- 
stition' to believe Grod is 'causality.] For when on the one hand, 
we reflect that the whole inorganic history of the earth proceeds in 
accordance with mechanical laws and without any intervention by 
creative power, [As a nail machine, in 'accordance with mecanical 
laws,' turns out four, six, twelve, and forty penny nails 'without 
any intervention' by man power] and when, on the other hand, we 
consider that the entire organic history of the world is also deter- 
mined by similar mechanical laws; [These 'mechanical laws' seem 
to be about as powerful as the 'mortal mind,' which does not exist, 
of C. S.] when we see that no supernatural interference by a crea- 
tive power is needed for the production of the various organisms 
[Just as no 'interference' by a man power is needed for the pro- 
duction of the various sizes of nails from the one machine and the 
one substance] then it is certainly quite inconsistent to assume such 
supernatural creative interference for the first production of life 
upon our globe. At all events we, as investigators ['Who saw in 
the new teachings an opportunity of achieving notoriety, and, at the 
same time, of venting [our] their spleen against the Church and 
casting obloquy on religion' (169:22)] of nature, are bound at least 
to attempt a natural explanation. * * * He, however, who does 
not assume a spontaneous generation [Something coming from noth- 
ing, without an omnipotent power intervening] of Monera, in the 
sense here indicated, to explain the first origin of life upon our 
earth, [Which was once a molten mass on account of such an intense 



456 

heat that would have destroyed any life germs, had they existed] 
has no other resource but to believe in a supernatural mireicle; [I 
suppose, then, that to believe in a lifeless Moneron spontaneously 
generating life would be to believe in a supra-supernatural miracle? 
Well, this is a free country, so take your choice] and this, in fact, 
is the questionable stand-point still taken by many so-called 'exact 
naturalists,' who thus renounce their own reason. * * * These 
Monera are iri the strictest sense of the word, 'organisms without 
organs.' [That is like brick walls without bricks. What 'verbiage' 
'intellectual progress' can invent!] * * * They are, at the same 
time, the simplest conceivable organisms; for their entire body in 
its fully developed and freely moving condition, consists merely of 
a small piece of structureless primitive slime" (80:30, 32, 45, 43). 

To what absurdities can not a person descend who denies the 
existence of God, and tries to account for the origin of life by giv- 
ing us a lot of "verbiage" such as I have just quoted! 

And now this organism without organs separates itself into two 
j)ieces, and these keep on evolving step by step, differentiating 
itself, passing through all stages of animal life from a flea to an ape, 
who became man's ancestor. Such is the theory of an atheist for 
the origin of life on this earth and for the origin of man. 

Evolution has this for a theory, also, for the origin of man: 

"Our imaginations must indeed be feeble if we fail to realize 
in thought, the evolution of the most complex organism out of the 
simplest. If a single cell, [The "small, semi-transparent, gelatinous 
spherule constituting the human ovum" under appropriate conditions, 
[Yes, that is it, "appropriate conditions"] becomes a man in the 
space of a few years; there can surely be no difficulty in understand- 
ing how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of 
untold millions of years, give origin to the human race" (170:434, 
435, Vol. 1)]. ' 

If there were no Creator to specially create the "appropriate 
conditions" then a single cell never would, in untold billions of 
years, give origin to the human race. 

I tried to "realize in thought" that such a thing is possible 
"under appropriate conditions," but what my "feeble" imagination 
could not get around was, what is meant by "appropriate conditions?" 
When I began to realize in thought what that meant then I was 
forced to the conclusion that one "supernatural miracle" was a less 



457 

diflScult solution for the origin of life and living beings than all the 
"verbiage" of evolutionists and scientists, with which they have 
"bumfoozled" so-called "great thinkers." It would require a constant 
infraction of the law that "like begets like," if the theory of evolu- 
tion — the transmutation of species, were true, and that would be 
continual miraculous operations. 

I will admit that the "old Hebrew idea that God takes clay and 
moulds a new creature, as a potter moulds a vessel, is probably too 
grossly anthropomorphic to be accepted by any modern defender of 
the special-creation doctrine" (170:421, Vol. 1), yet my theory, which 
I will give in time, presents less difficulty than any which has been 
elaborated by evolutionists and scientists. It was after reading the 
following, when the thought came to me of the theory which I hold 
for the origin of living beings on this earth: 

"Never yet has it been shown that -any one germ of vegeta- 
ble, or animal life, has been developed by the existing laws of 
nature, without some egg or germ previously supplied to start the 
process" (168:78). 

This thought then came to me, Is it not possible, since it has 
been learned that during the heated spell of 1901 chickens were 
hatched from eggs by the heat of the sun, or can be hatched by 
incubators, that God formed pairs of eggs, one for the male the 
other for the female, endowing them with the necessary instinct to 
break their way out of the shells and with the instincts necessary 
for their preservation and perpetuation, and had the sun to hatch 
them? 

That theory would still have God as the Creator, and should 
remove the doubts of those who do not believe in, what is called, 
a miraculous creation — that is, by word of fiat instantaneously cause 
to appear creatures where there were none. To me such a theory 
presents fewer — in fact no — difficulties than the theory of miracu- 
lous anthropomorphic creation, or than the theory of evolution, 
which would have us believe that one species is but a higher de- 
velopment of a lower species, in other words, the transmutation of 
species, like begetting unlike. 

An egg can be formed of the earth, by the process of natural 
growth, just as it now grows within the female, and becomes 
matured, ready for incubation, just as easily as God causes the nut 
with a hard shell or a banana with a soft shell — peeling — to form 



458 

without anthropomorphic agencies. Why should that process for the 
origin of the bird kingdom be any more difficult for God to use in 
the genesis of the bird kingdom than it is for Him — all of course, 
through laws, and not immediately or directly — to cause the giant 
oak to grow from the acorn without anthropomorphic agencies? If 
God could create the small egg of the canary bird and the large egg 
of the ostrich, could He not as easily create eggs large enough to 
hold any animal which he created, and which was developed enough 
so it could sustain itself on natural food other than milk? And if 
He could, could He not create two eggs of every animal created, one 
for the male and the other for the female, and endow them with all 
the instincts necessary for their preservation and perpetuation and 
have the sun hatch them the same as it hatched the eggs of the 
bird kingdom? Mr. Agassiz tells us that eggs of some species are 
even now hatched in water (171:65), and if such is the case could 
not water animals have originated from eggs which God had cre- 
ated specially through natural processes? If then God created the 
bird, the animal, and the fish from eggs, in the manner here stated, 
could He not likewise have created the first man and woman in the 
same way? 

As I have no infallible Bible, with a rib story, to defend, this 
theory appears to me to be the most reasonable solution of the per- 
plexing question of the how of all created beings. It was not nec- 
essary that the first couple needed to be any larger than a child of 
seven years of age now is in order to know what to do to live, and 
when they grew older they could pass through the same transitions 
as a child does now when growing older, therefore the eggs that 
held them would not have to be so very large. In fact does any- 
one suppose that God is limited in His power as to the size of an 
egg He could create? 

Why, even now there is an egg "on exhibition in Bird hall of 
the American Museum of Natural History," New York, which "be- 
longed to a gigantic extinct bird. * * * The extraordinary size 
of the egg is nearly a foot long by ten inches in diameter" (57: 
May 3, 1903). That is as large as a good-sized water melon. It 
may be seen then that God could have created any sized egg to 
answer the purpose for a genesis of any sized species, human or 
animal. 

If that has been the mode of operation for the genesis of all 



459 

living beings, and it is asked, "If divine power is demonstrated by 
the separate creation of each species, would it not have been still 
better demonstrated by the separate creation of each individual? 
Why should there exist this process of natural genesis? Why 
should not omnipotence have been proved by the supernatural pro- 
duction of plants and animals everywhere throughout the world from 
hour to hour" (170:422, 423, Vol. 1)? then I answer, because it was 
no longer necessary after creating the first pair of each species and 
endowing them with the power of reproduction. Is that not so? 

We must admit that in order to start a thing requires a specia, 
act which need not be repeated in order to transmit the thing and keep 
it a going. I will give an illustration to explain the point 1 am 
trying to make. Take the time before the sulphur match was 
invented, and a lot of persons had candles which were to be lightedl 
and were to be used in a Church procession. Was not the mode 
of operation, to start or light a fire, the striking together fline 
stones the sparts of which would ignite a moss, or whatever you 
call it, and then blowing it until it flamed? And now suppose that 
special act was gone through once in order to light the first candlt 
was it necessary to go through the same act in order to light all 
the other candles? Could not the first lighted candle transmit its 
light to the second candle and so on and still leave the first can- 
dle's light the same whether it had transmitted any light or not to 
another candle? The same is it with the continual reproduction 
be it plant, animal, or man. It is no longer necessary. That is 
why the Creator does not prove His omnipotence "by the super- 
natural production of plants and animals" and mankind "everywhere 
throughout the world from hour to hour." 

Is that an irrational answer to the queries of an agnostic? 

It is strange how blind these atheists and agnostics can be who 
seem to be haunted with the "superstitions" bugaboo of "super- 
natural miracles" in creation. Is it not so? Is there really any- 
thing "supernatural" in this theory of mine for the origin and 
perpetuation of plants, animal, and mankind, excepting the special 
act required for a beginning? And is not the beginning of any- 
thing a special act? Well, then, what is there that could be repug- 
nant to reason to believe that God created each pair of species 
separately, endowing them with the instincts necessary for their 
preservation and perpetuation? To me such a theory presents no 



460 

difficulty, but the theory of Evohition, the transmutation of species, 
like begetting unlike, does present difficulties. 

And is not my theory in accordance with the Scriptures which 
say: "Let the earth bring forth" (Gen. 1: — ) etc., which means 
that the beginnings of all living beings did not spring into exist- 
ence from nothing, in a moment, instantaneously, by Divine fiat 
but that God's mode of operation was then as now according to 
growth, gradual development? This solution of the genesis of all 
living beings does not require us to believe that "enormously com- 
plex birds and mammals were somehow conjured, like Aladdin's 
palace, in a single night, by a kind of enchantment which philoso- 
phers sought to dignify by calling it 'creative fiat' " (164:424, VoL 1), 
as a so-called advocate of Evolution stated it, would be the case if 
one believed in Special Creation. 

The solution of the genesis of living beings, according to the 
theory which I have given for it, also answers the question. Which 
was the first, the chick or the egg? by making the egg first out of 
the earth, by special act, does it not? 

As I have undoubtedly satisfied the rational mind that Special 
Creation, as I have outlined it, was a fact, and presents no- diffi- 
culties, but that the theories of atheists and agnostics for the origin 
of life and of organisms, do present insurmountable difficulties the 
subject might be dropped here. But as there are some analogies 
which evolutionists and scientists have misunderstood and misin- 
terpreted we will examine them so that they may see wherein they 
were blind. Also many of the theories which they advocate are so 
amusing that no doubt those who have not read them or heard of 
them would be interested in learning what they are, therefore we 
will continue the subject now under consideration. 



CHAPTER XX. 



EMBRYOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 

Tho advocates and defenders of Evolution and deriviation and 
transmutation theory — the development of man from an animal — 
assert that the argument alone from embryology is sufficient to de- 
cide the origin of all forms of animal life in favor of Evolution. 

"From the point of view of embryology the great body of facts 
make for the theory of Evolution, as against the theory of special 
creation, and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that those who 
are most competent to interpret the facts of the case, are diajjosed 
to regard the argument from embryology as of itself sufficient to 
demonstrate the deviation theory of all forms of animal life" 
(159:123). "Viewed in the light of a scientific logic, this argument 
from embryology * * * seems powerful enough, when taken 
alone, to decide the case in favor of the deriviation theory" (164:459 
Vol. 1). "Will it be * * * asserted that the Deity placed * * * 
stumbling-blocks to the human reason in the embryo, in order to 
deceive those who should extend their researches to this low level? 
It would be difficult to conceive of a more preposterous idea, 
yet there is no other escape from what seems a self-evident fact, that 
man is a product of evolution from the lower animals, and bears the 
marks of his ancestry thick upon him" (172:20^1. "With respect to 
development, we can clearly understand, on the principle of varia- 
tions supervening at a rather late embryonic period, * * * how 
it is that the embryos of wonderfully difiPerent forms should still 
retain, more or less perfectly, the structure of their common pro- 
genitor. No other explanation has ever been given of the marvel- 
ous fact that the embryos of a man, dog, bat, reptile, etc., can at first 
hardly be distinguished from each other. * * * Consequently 
we ought frankly to admit their community to descent; to take any 
other view, is to admit that our own structure, and that of all the 
animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our judgment 
* * * But the time will before long come, when it will be 



462 

thought wonderful that naturalists, who were well acquainted with 
the comparative structure and development of man, and other mam- 
mals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act 
of creation" (88:27, 28). "The embryological tree, expressing the 
developmental relations of organisms, will be similar to the tree 
which symbolizes their classificatory relations. That subordination 
which results from the divergence and re-divergence of embryos, as 
they all unfold. On the hypothesis of evolution this parallelism 
has a meaning — indicates that primordial kinship of all organisms, 
and that progressive diiferentiation [From what cause? Blind 
mechanical laws?] of them, which the hypothesis alleges. But on 
any other hypothesis the parallelism is peaningless; or rather, it 
raises a difficulty; since it implies either an effect without a cause 
or a design without a purpose" (170:452, 453, Vol. 1). 

"As the embryo often shows us more or less plainly the struc- 
ture of the less modified and ancient progenitor of the group, we 
can see how ancient and extinct forms so often resemble in their 
adult state the embryos of existing species of the same class. 
Agassiz believes this to be a universal law of nature; and we may 
hope hereafter to see the law proved true. Thus, as it seems to 
me, the leading facts in embryology, which are second to none in 
importance, are explained on the principle of variations [What 
caused these "variations?" "Mechanical laws?"] in the many de- 
scendants from some one ancient progenitor, having appeared at a 
not very early period of life, and having been inherited at a corre- 
sponding period. Embryology rises greatly in interest, when we 
look at the embryo as a picture, more or less obscured, of the 
progenitor, either in its adult or larval state" (173:466, 467). "It 
is * * * a most astonishing but incontestable fact, that the 
history of the evolution of man as yet constitutes no part of gen- 
eral education. [Because of its silly nonsense as taught by atheists 
and agnostics.] Indeed, our so-called 'educated classes' are to this 
day in total ignorance of the most important circumstances and the 
most remarkable phenomena which Anthropogeny has brought to 
light. In corroboration of this most astounding fact, I will only 
mention that most 'educated people' do not even know that each 
human individual is developed from an egg, and that this egg is a 
simple cell, like that of any animal or plant. * * * The majority 
of 'educated people' have never seen such a human germ, or em- 



463 

bryo, iu the early stages of development, nor are they aware that 
it is not at all different from those of other animals. * * * AH my 
readers know of the very important scientific movement which 
Charles Darwin caused * * * by his book oa the Origin of Species. 
The most direct consequence of this work, [Which shattered 
the "spontaneous generation" theory of Mr. Haeckel] * * * 
has been to cause new inquiries to be made into the origin 
of the human race, which have j)roved the natural evolution 
of man through lower animal forms. The Science which treats 
of the development of the human race from the animal king- 
dom is called Phylogeny, or the tribal history of man. The 
most important source from which the science derives its material, 
is Otogeny, or the history of germs, in other words, of the evo- 
lution of the individual. * * * This fundamental law * * * 
on the recognition of which depends the thorough understanding 
of the history of evolution, is briefly expressed in the ijroposition : 
that the History of the Germ is an epitome of the History of the 
Descent; [Just imagine "blind chance" giving an epitome," a "reca- 
pitulation," and a "compressed reproduction" of anythingl] or, in 
other words: that Otogeny is a recapitulation of Phylogeny, or, 
somewhat more explicitly, that the series of forms through which 
the Individual Organism passes during its progress from the egg 
cell to its fully developed state, is a brief, compressed reproduction 
of the long series of forms through which the animal ancestors of 
that organism ("or the ancestral forms of its species") have passed 
from the earliest periods [The "organless organism" Moneron.] of 
so-called organic creation down to the present time [of "appropri- 
ate conditions"]. The causal nature of the relation which connects 
the History of the Germ ("Embryology, or Otogeny" with that 
of the tribe ("Phylogeny" is dependent on the phenomena of 
Heredity [From the Moneron] and adaption. [Of the cow which 
"acquired" horns, and the mule which "acquired" long ears, to 
"adapt" themselves to the eating of grass. Nothing like "intel- 
lectual progress" which rules out God, and assigns "mechanical 
causes to phenomena everywhere" (60:232), a machine in one case 
making a cow with horns and in another a mule with long ears, 
"mechanically" through "blind chance"] (60:273). * * * At 
the end of the first month, all the essential parts of the body are 
already begun; and yet, in this stage, we are still unable to dis- 



464 

cern any characters essentially distinguishing the human embryo 
from those of Dog, the Rabbit, the Ox, the Horse, or, indeed, of 
any of the higher mammals. All these embryos are still of the 
same form [They having been brought to this stage of sameness 
"mechanically, ' and from thence on through "mechanical causes" 
they will begin to differentiate, ultimately developing into a dog, a 
rabbit, an ox, or a horse, through "blind chance"] and at best 
differ from the embryo of Man only in general dimensions of body, 
or in the size of the individual organs — differences of no moment. 
* * * The whole internal and external organization, the form, 
the disposition, and the connection of the separate parts of the 
body of the germ are essentially the same in the human embryo 
of four weeks, and in the embryos of other Mammals in a corres- 
ponding stage of development" (80:2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 372); 

In his lecture on the "Physical Basis of Life," Prof. Huxley 
has this to say: 

"There is some one kind of matter which is common to all liv- 
ing beings. * * * Beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk, 
worm, and polype, are all composed of structural units of the same 
character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus. * * * 
All forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the 
four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very com- 
plex union, and * * * they behave similarly toward several re- 
agents" (174:452, 454, 455, 456). 

It may be seen, then, from the foregoing quotations, that Em- 
bryology forms an important — in fact the principal — link in the 
chain of the evolution theory, the transmutation of species, the de- 
velopment of man from the lower animals. 

We will now see whether or not this link can be broken. If 
it can, and I know it can be, then the theory, that man was evolved 
from the lower animals, must explode, and the theory of a special 
creation by a conscious, intelligent, and omnipotent Being — God, 
must once more gain the ascendant and stand crowned victor over 
the demolished ruins of atheistic and agnostic evolution. 

If life originated by spontaneous generation in a Moneron in 
the bottom of the sea, and the Moneron is a one cell "organless 
organism" and "it is possible, and, I believe, probable, that retro- 
gression has been as frequent as progression. Evolution is com- 
monly conceived to imply in everything an 'intrinsic' tendency to 



465 

become something higher. This is an erroneous conception of it" 
(175:95, Vol. 1), then how in the name of the "highest intellectual 
progress"' is a cell going to get beyond the see-saw stage between 
a tnoneron and an oyster, — if the oyster were the next 'something 
higher" to a moneron? If one, for instance, in attempting to walk 
away from a certain point, made progress of a step or two and he 
retrogated^went backwards — as frequently as he progressed, would 
he ever get from that certain point? Yet that would be just the 
predicament a moneron would be in if evolution did not mean a 
"tendency to become something higher" and "retrogression has been 
as frequent as progression." The advocates of evolution can be as 
inconsistent as any one can be when they want to make a point 
that would come in conflict with their absurd theories, about the 
development of man from an animal. But granting that evolution 
has a "tendency to become something higher" how is an "organ- 
less organism," through "blind chance," going to take a step to 
become "something higher" when it might just as apt take a step 
to become something lower if retrogression is as frequent as pro- 
gression ? 

If the human embryo, at the end of the first month, has no 
characteristics discernable that are essentially distinguishable from 
that of a dog, a rabbit, an ox, or a horse, at a corresponding 
stage of development, and these different embryos reached this 
stage of similarity through "mechanical causes," then what is 
it that cases them from thence on to differentiate one into a man, 
another into a dog, or a rabbit, or an ox, or a horse? Will a machine 
work up, "mechanically," matter to a sameness up to a certain 
stage and then all at once, without the intervention of a living, 
intelligent, and free-will being — man, begin to differentiate and 
turn out articles among which there is as great a difference as 
there is between a man and a horse, or between a dog and an ox, 
or between a man and a rabbit? 

Any one who understands the meaning of "mechanical" knows 
that such a thing is impossible. Then how is such a process pos- 
sible when applied to "protoplasm," the one kind of matter, — "struc- 
tural units of the same character" — which is "common to all living 
beings?" Can evolutionists answer that without admitting that a 
living, intelligent, and omnipotent Being intervenes and causes the 
protoplasm to differentiate into the different living beings, just as a 



I 



466 

living, intelligent being of power — man, can make a lot of material 
differentiate into a house, a church, a paved street, a two hundred 
foot high smoke stack, or whatever he plans and designs to build? 
Is that not so? And right here it is where evolutionists are blind 
in not seeming to understand that the process of development from 
a simple cell to a complex organism is impossible in any other 
way than from within outward, and that therefore the embryos 
must pass through dimly outlined forms, from one stage to another, 
which makes them appear to "recapitulate'' forms of other beings 
not so definitely outlined either, all of which are constructed on a 
general plan. 

That fact is made plain by looking at plates 6 and 7, between 
pages 362 and 364 in Volume 1 of "The Evolution of Man," by 
Ernst Haeckel. The plates have photos of the embryos of a fish, 
a salamander, a tortoise, a chick, a hog, a calf, a rabbit, and a man, 
showing three different stages of development. Instead of weaken- 
ing my belief in a special creation for all organic beings, by looking 
at those photos of the embryos in different stages of development, 
it forced me to admit that the different stages through which the 
embryos passed in their development, did not "recapitulate" or give 
an "epitome of the History of Descent," but passed through stages 
of development "that showed a general plan, and that it was impos- 
sible for them to develop differently because the developing power 
works from within outward, and is not a "stumbling block to the 
human reason" when one once perceives that. 

About the time that I was deeply interested in the study of 
the evolution of man an incident happened to me that drove home 
to me the belief of the development of the embryo along the lines 
as I have just stated. My sister and my people were having two 
houses built on, what is called, the brick veneer plan, where the 
building, up to a certain stage, has all the appearances of going to 
be a frame building, or, as it is called, frame house. When the 
houses were that far advanced as to give the appearance of becom- 
ing frame houses, an acquaintance of mine came along, as I was 
leaning against a telephone pole about a half of a block from the 
houses, and was looking towards the houses, and said to me, "I 
see that your folks are building a couple of frame houses so near 
down town. Do you think they are better or cheaper than brick?" 

I then told him the kind of houses they would be. He then 



467 

said, that to look at them he took it for granted that they would be 
regular frame houses. Now, he would have had just as much reason, 
as the evolutionists have, to have said that we "placed * * * 
stumbling-blocks to the human reason * * * in order to deceive 
those who should extend their" oljservations to the further comple- 
tion of the houses, or that it was "a mere snare laid to entrap onr 
judgment," could he not? But was that the reason the houses were 
built that way in order to deceive anyone or as a mere snare to en- 
trap any one's judgment, because the houses were built so as to give 
them the appearance of "recapitulating" the evolution of a brick 
house from a frame hut? Not at all. It was simply the only and 
the best way, after a general plan, to build them in that way. So 
likewise is it with the development of the embryos of different liv- 
ing beings. It is simply the best, and probably the only way, that 
development can take place that works from within outward. 

And because it is after a general plan, and at times there seems 
to be a similarity in appearance in the different embryos, at certain 
stages of development, these prejudiced and blind evolutionists jump 
to the conclusion that the embryo of man gives an "epitome of the 
History of Descent," a "recapitulation," a "compressed reproduction 
of the long series of forms through which the animal ancestors" of 
man passed *'from the earliest periods of so-called organic creation 
[As, for instance, the "organless organism," Moneron, which "spon- 
taneously" generated life, making something come from nothing, by 
the intervention of nothing, a proposition that is squarely in con- 
flict with one of the axioms of science that "from nothing, nothing 
comes."] down to the present time, and man is, therefore, "a product 
of evolution from the lower animals." Do you see now what a ven- 
erable nightmare the evolutionists have made of the theory of 
development of the different embryos? They have been simply mis- 
taken as to their conclusions, not understanding the mode of devel- 
opment, just as the man was mistaken about the houses, not know- 
ing the mode of the construction of houses of a certain kind. 

Supposing a man who had never seen any buildings in his life, 
having been born and raised in one of the deep mines of the world 
where they say some never see the top of the earth, should come 
to the surface of the earth and be taken to a farm where there are 
different buildings, from small chicken houses, to a large house for 
man to live in, would he not have reasons to believe, according to 



468 

the theory of evolutionists, that the large house with its glass win- 
dows and part glass doors, its two stories, its carpeted floors and 
papered walls, etc., was evolved from the chicken houses of slat win- 
dows, plank doors, white-washed walls and straw floors, etc.? But 
would he be right in his conclusions? I dare say that when man 
did the first building in the world he built for himself before he 
ever built for his chickens or any other of his animals. Is that not 
so? Well then, the highly developed house is not an evolution of 
a lower developed chicken house or any other house, any more so 
than man is a more highly developed being from some lower animal. 
Man was man from the beginning of his creation by God, just as 
a chicken was a chicken from the beginning, and neither evolved 
from any other species, any more so than the house evolved from 
the chicken house which is built on the same general plan as that 
of the dwelling house. 

Furthermore, what would be the object in "unconscious causes" 
"recapitulating,' if these apparent recapitulations are not necessary 
to the development of the embryo? If "mechanical causes" can 
produce anything, which would be the case if evolution were true? 
then why do they not at once outline the skeleton and add to and 
fill in by degrees, simultaneously, as it acquires matter, all over 
the outlined skeleton, instead of "deceiving" for a mopth, or leav- 
ing the evolutionists in doubt, as to what the embryo will develop 
into ultimately? It is simply because it is impossible to do that, 
just as it would be impossible for- a man to build the roof of a 
house before he built the foundation and superstructure. And why 
does he use scaffolding which is no part of the house and which 
is afterwards torn down and is, in one sense of the word, so much 
waste matter? 

Is there any waste matter in the embryo which at one stage 
of development seems to show the outline of a part of the body 
which outline is lost sight of in a later state of development? No 
evolutionist can say that there is, yet one would think that is 
inferred from this: 

■'Now why is it that, in all cases, before a complex organism 
[In the ^omb] can attain the structure which distinguishes it, there 
must be an evolution [Through what cause? "Blind chance"?] of 
forms which distinguish the structure of organisms lower in the 
series? [As the brick veneer house has the forms of a frame house; 



469 

a structure "lower in the series," [none of these phases have any 
adaptation to the future state of the animal; [As the scaffolding 
has no adaptation to the future state of the completed house.] 
* * * On the hypothesis that each species of organisms was in- 
dependently built up by a Divine Architect, how are we to explain 
these circuitous proceedings? 'What,' asks Mr. Lewes, 'should we 
say to an architect who was unable, or being able was obstinately 
unwilling, to erect a palace excejDt by first using his materials in 
the shape of a hut, then pulling it down and rebuilding them as a 
cottage, then adding story to story and room to room, not with any 
reference to the ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly with 
reference to the way in which houses were constructed in ancient 
times'" (164:459, Vol. 1)? 

Now notwithstanding the fact that the embryo should go through 
those apparent processes of "pulling down and rebuilding," and 
there is no waste material, does that not prove that there is the 
necessity for such processes, from the fact that the developing — 
building, is done from within instead of from without, as in the 
putting up of a hut, a cottage, or a palace? Just try to put up a 
house by doing all the work from the inside and then see what sort 
of a roof, or weather boarding, or brick veneer house there would be. 

God creates from within outward, and a being is developed 
gradually from within, just as a balloon is inflated from within and 
the gas forces out the shapeless canvas until it has assumed the 
shape of the pattern after which the balloon was made. Likewise 
is it with all types or species; they are fixed patterns and cannot 
go beyond the die or mold in which they were cast. And it is 
because of the elasticity of these moulds or patterns that we have 
the variety in all the different species, be they dogs, horses, cattle, 
mice, elephants, Man, or what not, but to pass their "rubicons" or 
moulds, so as to transmute themselves into other species, beyond a 
hybrid, is as impossible as it is for the Chinese baby girls to be 
born with abnormal feet, simply because their ancestors have for 
thousands of years bound their daughters' feet. 

This practice of the Chinese to force the feet to adapt them- 
selves to smallness by binding their daughters' feet, but where 
"Chinese babies with naturally shaped feet, continue to be born" 
(176:501), proves irrefutably my assertion that a die or mould was 
cast for each species beyond which it cannot go, and also proves 



470 

that natural selection, or adaptation to conditions had nothing to 
do with modifying species. 

If that were true that adaptations caused modifications, then 
why did the cattle "acquire" horns and the animals of burden long 
ears, with which to adapt themselves to the eating of grass? Or 
why did the cattle "acquire" hair, and the sheep wool, with which 
to protect themselves against the weather, when both grew side by 
side and lived on grass ? Why does the substance of corn or grass 
come out feathers on the goose, bristles on the hog, hair on the 
cattle, and wool on the sheep, if the "orderly tendencies of the 
organic world" (60:258) is due to "mechanical causes?" Did any 
one ever see a machine, through "mechanical causes," turn out four 
different kinds of articles from one kind of material, without the 
intervention of a living, conscious being — man? 

No doubt in the development, according to the evolution hy- 
pothesis, of the moneron, the lowest organism, into man, the highest 
organism, the chicken forms one of the links in the chain of evo- 
lution. If it does, — and does, it must if evolution were true, — then 
I will give you some of the theories of the evolutionists in regard 
to some of the characteristics of the chicken. Instead of admitting 
that God specially created the chicken, endowing it with the neces- 
sary instincts to break but of the shell, and for its preservation and 
perpetuation, we are given the following great solution for the origin 
of the chicken's instincts: 

"There is no greater difficulty in understanding how young mam- 
mals have instinctively learned to suck the breast, than in under- 
standing how unhatched chickens have learned to break the egg- 
shell by tapping against it with their specially adapted beaks; or 
how a few hours after leaving the shell they have learned how to 
pick up grains of food. In such cases the most probable solution 
seems to be, that the habit was at first acquired by practice at a 
, more advanced age, and afterward transmitted at an earlier age" 
(173:225). 

Will some defender of evolution please tell us how the chicken 
could attain to "a more advanced age" if it was not until it had 
attained to a more advanced age that it practiced breaking the 
egg-shell in which it was enclosed? How did the first chicken get 
out of the egg-shell if it was not until at a "more advanced age" 
the "habit was at first acquired by practice?" Did the chicken get 



471 

out of the egg-shell by an evolution miracle and then at a "more 
advanced age" enclose itself in an egg-shell, a number of times 
smaller than itself, and "practice" breaking the egg-shell until it 
had "acquired" the "habit?" If you want to comprehend the utter 
silly nonsense of such a theory then just imagine yourself practic- 
ing parturition, at a "more advanced age," with your mother until 
you had acquired the habit by "practice." 

"Great God!" one might exclaim with the priest, do evolution- 
ists really believe in such absurdities, that the chicken learned to 
break its egg-shell as a result of a habit which was at first "ac- 
quired by practice at a more advanced age, and afterward trans- 
mitted at an earlier age?" How did the first chicken get out of 
its egg-shell if it was not until "at a more advanced age" that it 
began to "practice" breaking the egg-shell? Can a Chicken attain 
to a "more advanced age" when it is yet in the egg-shell? No 
wonder evolutionists cannot understand some things by the theory 
of evolution. It is because evolution, in the main, is not true. It 
is because God cannot be ruled out of the universe, try as evolu- 
lutionists will. 

Is there any difficulty in understanding how the first unhatched 
chickens knew how to break their way out of the egg-shells by say- 
ing they were endowed with that instinct by the Creator, who could 
as easily form the first eggs, one for the male and the other for the 
female, out of the ground, as He forms the mushroom, or any other 
created thing, without anthropomorphic agents, and had the natural 
heat hatch them, as it did some in the heated spell of 1901? There 
is no difficulty in that, is there? Nor is there in understanding how 
young mammals knew how to "suck the breast" when we say they 
were instinctively so endowed by the Creator. Evolutionists do not 
tell us what young mammals did for sustenance until they attained 
to a "more advanced age" at which they could "practice" sucking the 
breast until they "acquired" the habit. It is not expected that any 
one of "presumptuous ignorance" pull off the wool from one's eyes 
and ask them that question. They seem to think that their "verbi- 
age" will "bumfoozle" all the people all the time. But they got left 
for once on this "hayseed," did they not? a. f. y. 

If then my theory, which presents no difficulties, is the true 
solution for the origin of the chicken and its instincts necessary for 
breaking its way out of the egg-shell, and for its preservation and 



472 

perpetuation, does that not break a link in the chain of evolution? 
And if it does, does that not demolish the theory that man is a 
descendant of an animal? But I am not through yet with the sub- 
ject. Evolutionists might be ready now to cry "quits," but I will 
give you some of their theories for the origin of some things that 
you may see how absurd they are. 

"If it [Man-ajje] had remained in the trees we should probably 
today have only a man-ape still. Leaving their safe shelter for the 
ground, it became exposed to new dangers and was forced to fit 
itself to fresh conditions" (172:91). 

Of course, we are not told the reason for the man-apes "leav- 
ing their safe shelter for the ground" and exposing themselves- to 
"new dangers." Probably it was on account of "appropriate con- 
ditions," which the leaving of a place of safety for "new dangers" is. 

If the man-ape left his piece of safety no doubt he was the 
ancestor of the tyranical husband of today whose word is law 
for his wife, if the man-ape made his companion, the "she-ape," 
follow him, for how otherwise could he have propogated his kind? 
These little difficulties you are supposed not to think of when you 
read works on evolution. But just think what a narrow escape you 
had from not being "today * * * only a man-ape still!" 

What courageous beings our ancestors were for "leaving their 
safe shelter [In the trees] for the ground" and exposing themselves 
to "new dangers" in order that we, their progeny, might become a 
full fledged man one day. Let us take oflp our hats and bow to 
such courageous and discerning man-ape ancestors that we had. 
There is no need of a God when such beings can transform them- 
selves at will and develop themselves into man. It is strange that 
we have so long been "bumfoozled" by such "superstition" as a 
belief in a God who specially created man, and all other beings, 
when an "organless organism," Moneron, can evolve and develop 
itself into a man-ape and then into a man simply by "leaving their 
safe shelter for the ground" and exposing themselves to "new 
dangers." 

That our man-ape ancestors had a faculty, free-will, which evo- 
lutionists deny us, calling it a "chronic delusion" (464:;185, Vol. 2) 
to believe in the free-will doctrine, and showing the "highest intel- 
lectual progress" (60:232) in not believing in it, must be inferred 
from the fact that the man-ape could leave his safe shelter and 



473 

expose himself to "new dangers." Is that not so? Such a conclusion 
must also be inferred from this: 

"The ancestral form of the ape, ages in the past, was doubt- 
less a sole-walking quadruped, * * * What the story of this 
very ancient quadruped was we are quite unable to say. It may, 
in the exigencies of existence, have come to a ijarting of the ways; 
[How? "Mechanically"?] a section of the group, drawn by a love 
of fruit, develo^Ding the climbing habit; [like the linemen climbing 
telegraph poles] the remaining section continuing on the ground 
[Why? Through choice, free-will or was it through "mechanical 
causes," a machine doing two different things with the same 
materialj ape ancestors?] and following a separate line of evolution. 
Perhaps only a single species took to the trees; [Who, in time, 
again "left their safe shelter for the ground" and became man in- 
stead of reverting to that from which they evolved under "appro- 
priate conditions," notwithstanding that we are told to believe that 
"retrogression has been as frequent as progression" in evolntion] 
for it is quite possible for a single form [Did the male com^jel the 
female to climb trees for fruit, also? for how otherwise could he 
propogate his species? |, in a new and advantageous habitat, to 
vary in time into a great number of species" (172:44). 

After I read that the first time, and then saw linemen climb- 
ing telephone or telegraph poles, the thought came to me that if 
these ancestors of ours who developed climbing habits and which 
changed them into another species is true, then, according to evo- 
lution, there was no telling but what one of these linemen may not 
one day become so transmuted that if he had a wife and should 
return to her she would think that sure enough a "supernatural 
miracle" had taken place; when she beheld her husband with his 
claw hands and long tail to wrap around the pole to help hold him 
in place of bis "new and advantageous habitat." 

Now the question is. If a man became thus transmuted can he 
propogate his kind unless his wife has also become a transmuted 
being of climbing habits? Which is the offspring most likely to 
imitate or resemble, the one who contributes but one-thousandth 
(167:409) part of the physical to the child, in embryo, which the 
father does, or the one from whom it derives nine hundred and 
ninety-nine thousandths, which the mother does? 

This is one weighty ijoint against the theory of evolution, 



474 

namely, is there always a female which passes through the identical 
circumstances that a male does who becomes a transmuted species 
in his new "habitat," and becomes transmuted to the same species 
as that of the male? Is it not a likelihood that the pair, raising 
a young brood, the female is less likely, on account of watching 
her young, to practice the climbing habit, and could not therefore 
pass through the same conditions that the male did who probably 
gathered food-fruit, for the female while she was nursing and pro- 
tecting the young. And if so, how could they become transmuted 
alike under unlike conditions, so that they could propogate the new 
or transmuted species? Is that not a point in itself that is fatal 
to the theory of evolution? a. f. y. 

"According to the evolutionary theory of natural selection, it 
is inferred that hereditary characters undergo a change whenever a 
change will better adapt an organism to changed conditions of life. 
The whale is * * * a case in point. From the best evidence 
obtainable, it is concluded that the ancestors of whales were land 
quadrupeds, which became aquatic in their habits. But such a 
change in their mode of life would necessitate a corresponding 
change in the functions of various parts and organs. The hind- 
legs would not be required for purposes of locomotion, and hence 
they would disappear. [Like the man's beard, which is no longer 
'required for purposes' of any kind, and which he tries to get rid 
of by shaving.] The fore-legs would be adapted for swimming, and 
would, therefore, be transformed [Not in thousands of years, as the 
Chinese girls' feet have not, in that time, been naturally transformed 
from large to small feet] into fins or paddles" (169:111). 

That is a warning to you who like to go swimming. The first 
thing you know you will have "fins or paddles" instead of hands 
with fingers. "Great God!" is it possible that evolution requires 
such stultifying nonsense to bolster it up? First it is a Moneron 
that "spontaneously generates" life in the bottom of the sea, de- 
velops progressively and retrogressively into land quadrupeds, and 
then becomes again "aquatic in their habits" until they are whales. 

Why did the "land quadrupeds" become acquatic in their 
habits? Was it to keep the flies off, or was it to put their heads 
under water for food that had partly rotted and decayed, or was it 
to cool off, or was it to rest easier, or why was it that the water 
became "appropriate conditions" for land quadrupeds? 



475 

I have seen cattle, in hot weather, stand in water ponds for 
about ten hours in the day and then walk out, eat some grass and 
lie down to rest on the ground, making fourteen hours on land as 
against ten hours in water, and will any rational mind dare say 
that the adaptations of ten hours will override the adaptations of 
fourteen hours, supposing it were in the torrid zone where they 
could make that a daily practice the whole year? And if the fixity 
of type is so immutable that nature, forced by external means as 
the Chinese have used for thousands of years in binding their daugh- 
ters' feet, will not reproduce anything but normal types, is it reas- 
onable to believe that a land quadruped, who at the most could not 
have lived over a few hundred years, could modify itself in one life 
and become a whale? And if not, how will the quadruped have 
assurance that his progeny will live in the water and keep up the 
practice of swimming? 

What a lot of difficulties evolution does present. And yet 
there are those who would rather believe in such a lot of difficul- 
ties than to believe in one special creation which presents no dif- 
ficulties, especially as I have outlined it. That a priest should fall 
into the fallacious theory of evolution is not to be wondered at, 
for one who believes that out of the "slime of the earth" he can 
make the "celestial God." and who has not discerned that a host 
of heaven had to listen to over 46,000 petitions simultaneously every 
second of time, which is an impossibility for any being, excepting 
God Almighty, if she were to hear all the petitions addressed to 
her, would likewise find no trouble in keeping the wool over his 
eyes long enough to believe in the errors and difficulties of evolu- 
tion (The last quotation was from a priest). But that so-called 
highly educated and of a penetrating mind should fall into the 
mistaken views of evolutionists passes my comprehension, unless it 
is culpable short-sightedness. 

I suppose I have said enough already to the unprejudiced mind 
that special creation presents fewer difficulties than evolution. But 
this is not all yet. We will see what more there is that bears on 
the subject under consideration. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Evolution and Special Creation — Continued. 

As I am only trying to break the chain of evolution I believe 
I am at liberty to attack that chain in whatever link I want to, 
therefore, I will proceed in that manner. 

"Adaptation through practice and habit, to the changing exter- 
nal conditions of life, has ever been the cause of changes in the 
nature of organic species, and Heredity caused the transmission of 
these modifications to their descendants" (80:85, Vol. 1). 

Is that true, when for, thousands of years the Chinese have 
tried to change the feet of their daughters, by binding them, yet 
"Heredity" has not "caused the transmission of these modifications 
[Small feet.] to their descendants," but all Chinese girls are bom 
with normal feet? * 

"He [Lamarck.] assumed that the Apes most closely akin to 
Man, those which became the ancestors of mankind, made the first 
step toward becoming human when they gave up the habit of 
climbing and living on trees, and accustomed themselves to an up- 
right gait" (80:87, Vol. 1). 

If then a man gets on all fours and plays horse for his chil- 
dren, when they ride on his back, if that were true, that the first 
step of the ape toward becoming human was by assuming "an up- 
right gait" then the father would in reality be taking the "first step 
toward becoming" a land quadruped which could afterwards become 
"aquatic in habits" and be a whale. Is that not so? But do you 
believe it? Hardly. Yet that ought to be as possible as that of the 
ape only needing to assume an "upright gait" as a first step toward 
becoming human. What nonsense is there not required to bolster 
up the origin of a thing when God is ruled out as a Special Creator 
of Man and all living beings. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"How it comes that certain colors, sounds and forms should 
give pleasure to man and the lower animals, that is, how the sense 
of beauty in its simplest form was first acquired, [Why, by "prac- 
tice at a more advanced age," just like the chicken did that "ac- 
quired the habit by practice," of course. Is that not simple(?)J 



477 

we do not know any more than how certain odors and flavors were 
first rendered agreeable" (173:488). 

How easy it is to answer that if one is only willing to admit 
a God who specially created man with the senses that can take 
cognizance of beauty, sound, odors, or flavors. Is that not so? a. f. y. 
But theo, what can be expected of one who says, "I have at least, 
as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of 
separate creations" (88:69)? 

Here is some more from the same one who is one of the "high- 
est specimens of thoughtful humanity" (60:182), and of whom a 
noted person said "he was one of the greatest men who ever touched 
this globe" (173:488). 

"As far as the extreme intricacy of the subject permits us to 
judge, it appears that our male ape-like progenitors acquired their 
beards as an ornament to charm or excite the opposite sex, and 
transmitted them only to their male offspring" (8:9). 

And I suppose that is the reason that women are beardless, 
their female "ape-like progenitors" must have done no "sparking," 
and as the male apes probably "chased" the females as the women 
nowadays "chase" the men, if some dyspeptic editors and ad. writ- 
ers are to be believed, the male apes who were getting left saw 
they had to do something to "charm" the female apes, so they 
"acquired their beards as an ornament" with which to do so. 

Oh, but how powerful and penetrating must not their percep- 
tive faculties have been when no such a thing as a beard yet ex- 
isted, yet the male apes perceived if they would "acquire" beards 
[Through "mortal mind," I suppose] they could "charm" the female 
apes! Just see what a lot of suffering I might have been spared 
if I had only known years ago, that a beard might have "charmed" 
an eighteen-year-old Irish girl. 

That such a thing might have been possible may be inferred 
from this: 

"Your beard is quite becoming to you, and we ought to do 
all we can to keep up as good an appearance as possible as long 
as we can. Besides you do not know how many women would be 
only too glad to take care of you as long as life kept you together." 

That was the reply an acquaintance of mine made to me in 
the presence of her husband one Sunday afternoon as I met them 
when taking a walk. They had not seen me for some time and when 



478 

they saw me they told me that I had a good healthy appearance, 
when I said, no doubt it was due to the beard, which had had 
about a three months' growth, that made me look fuller in the face, 
but that I intended to shave it off about Easter, — this incident oc- 
curring about three weeks before Easter, — as I was beyond the 
possibility of ever making "goo goo eyes" at any young lady any- 
way, telling them that I had a few months before read the theory 
that Mr. Darwin gave for the origin of the beard in man, and had 
also read in another work that man had a beard, or was intended 
by nature to have one, as a protection to his throat, because the 
magnetic currents passed into the man form the top downwards, 
and that in woman they passed in the opiDosite direction (151:130) 
(which probably accounts for the "cold feet" in the wives that 
married men seem to complain so much about, and why the women 
can go in decollete in zero weather and feel "comfortable" — that is 
warm), and that that was the reason I intended to let the beard 
grow through the winter months, having had a little touch of bron- 
chial trouble at the time. That it was not because I wanted to 
make "goo goo eyes" or had any designs on any young woman 
that I let the beard grow. It was after I had said that that the 
lady made the foregoing remark. 

If then my beard, when I had a "kink in the back," made me 
look so "charming" as this married woman, in the presence of her 
husband, said it made me look, then who can tell what an irresistible 
"charmer" of the opposite sex I might have been with a beard 
when I was as erect as an Uncle Sam peace preserver is, and when 
I measured six feet and three inches in height and weighed 210 
pounds? 

Now, if that is why a man has a beard because his male ape 
ancestors "acquired their beards as an ornament to charm the oppo- 
site sex, and transmitted them only [Oh, how powerful they were!] 
to their male offspring," then why did they not also transmit the 
knowledge to us — their male progeny — that we could "charm" the 
women with our beards, an acknowledgment which was partly ad- 
mitted by my lady acquaintance that the beard would do? What 
good does it do us men folks to have a beard and the power to 
grow it, as a result of our "male ape-like progenitors," power to 
perceive their ornamental value as "charmers," and of their power 
to transmit it "only to their male offspring," and not have the 



479 

''acquired" instinctive knowledge transmitted that we could "charm" 
the females — women — with them? 

The same author claims that "some intelligent actions, [Which, 
no doubt, the "acquiring" of a beard with which to "charm the 
opposite sex" would be,— an intelligent action] after being per- 
formed during several generations, become converted into instincts 
[Like the chicken which "acquired" the habit, by practice, of pick- 
ing its way out of the egg-shell at a "more advanced age"] and are 
inherited" (88:76). 

Why, then, did not we men inherit the instinctive knowledge 
of the intelligent actions of our male ape-like progenitors who, no 
doubt, during several generations -perforined the intelligent action 
of charming the opposite sex with their beards, if there is any truth 
in the theories of evolution? 

Which of the two theories is the more likely to be the true 
one for the origin of the beard in man, the evolutionists, that it 
was "acquired" by male apes for the purpose of eharniing the op- 
posite sex, and then transmitting it to their male offspring only, or 
to a special creation by the Creator? Especially so the latter, if 
the following is true, and no doubt it is, for the author of it was 
only stating a fact which became known through scientific investi- 
gation and observation: 

"Magnetism, electricity, etc., are actual streams as truly as are 
currents of water, air, etc., and as water will carry the sand and other 
particles of matter in the direction of its current, so will streams of 
magnetism tend to carry particles of blood in the direction of their 
currents. * * * Before the age of puberty * * * the mag- 
netic circuit is comparatively feeble. At puberty the magnetic cir- 
cuits become intense * * * In woman would not the magnetic 
currents become warmed in passing through the whole chest and 
emerging at the bosom, and to some extent at the neck, and is not 
this the reason why woman does not need a beard to protect her 
lower face, and can seemingly stand more exposure to the cold than 
man on the upper part of the chest? Would not the process be 
exactly reversed in man * * * 9 * * * The sexes are in- 
tended for each other, and the highest perfection demands that they 
should frequently be in each others atmosphere, so as to gain those 
balancing and animating forces with which nature has so beauti- 
fully provided them. * * * Fig. 43 will show how the currents 



480 



of the two sexes will exactly blend so that each will add power and 
vitality to the other, the female at the left being attractive just where 
the male at the right is propulsive in the same direction, and vice 
versa'' (151:130, 131). 

Does that not completely shatter the theory of the evolutionist, 
and that evolution "has enabled us to substitute everywhere uncon- 
scious causes acting from necessity, for conscious purposive causes," 
and that ''the organization of man and animals have admitted of a 
natural solution, of a mechanical explanation, by non-purposive 
causes" (80:17, Vol. 1) through evolution? Does that not prove that 



I 



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1 BETWEEN MALE and F£MAL£ 







there is a Being who specially created things for a purpose, and^that 
there is design in the universe? Can any one still say. there is'no 
God? 

When any one says, "For my own part I would as soon be 
descended from the heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded 
enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old 
baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in tri- 
umph his young comrade from a crowed of astonished dogs — as from 
a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody 



481 

sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like 
slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest supersti- 
tions" (88:) and such a one is eulogized by infidels as "one of the 
greatest men who ever touched this globe," are not those who ac- 
cept their theories virtually placing "blind chance" on the throne of 
honor and ruling God out of His creation? 

Let us see what might be meant by a "savage who delights to 
torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide 
without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency," 
etc. No doubt it is intended to convey the impression that that 
was the state or condition of primitive man just after he passed 
from the animal into the human, and that such things might be 
expected from beings which evolved from animals and were not, 
therefore, specially created. 

Let us see how much truth there might be in the assertion 
that the deeds enumerated in that quotation could only be possible 
of commission by savages. 

"Talk about the water cure! [Another relic of primitive sav- 
agery ( ?) ] It is merciful compared with the manner in which , 

colored, was put to death at . He had assaulted a white woman; 

the people [Primitive savages] pulled him from a train that was 
bearing him to the county jail, piled the stakes around him, and 
began to torture him with slow death. His eyes were first burnt 
out [Horrors! on the cruel primitive savage, who "delights to tor- 
ture his enemies." No wonder one should rather be a descendant 
of a monkey or a baboon, than from such savages], and red hot 
irons were applied to all parts of his body for a half hour before 
the slakes were fired at his feet. The mob [Primitive savages] 
yelled for a slow death while the man begged to be shot and put 
out of misery" (Daily paper of primative savage days). 

What has the evolutionist to say about that species of tortur- 
ing enemies in this, what he likes to call, the age of the "highest 
intellectual progress" and civilization? And that is not the only 
case of torturing that has taken place in this age. 

One day I went into a place of business and while I was in 
there one of the men connected with the business came into the 
store. As there happened to be only a few men in at the time, 
this man said to some young men, in my hearing, that "the only 
place you get all the liquor you want on Sunday in this town [A 



482 

city where the law, of the Sunday closing of saloons, was enforced] 
is in a w — h — ," — a house of ill-fame. 

I am also informed of a case where a married man, who had 
taken another woman to a rooming house, was traced to the room- 
ing house, the door forced in, and because of the hot weather, at 
the time, both were found in the. room without a stitch of clothing 
on them, and he joked about it to his acquaintances, afterwards, 
telling about the condition they were found in. I am also informed 
that his people are all respectable and good Christians. Now what 
has evolution to say about these two cases of "savages" which 
"knows no decency"? How is that for the evolution of the 
moral nature, which evolutionists say was evolved by man as he 
developed his reason, and that it was not originally an endowment 
of the Creator? 

If evolution answers that "retrogression has been as frequent 
as progression" in morals, then it is confronted with the question. 
How could the primative savage ever develop the moral nature in 
that case? Even the moral nature is a thing in itself that is fatal 
to the theory of the evolution or development of man from some 
lower animal. If it is asked then why do men at times display 
characteristics that resemble animal qualities, such as tortiiring, 
lack of decency, etc., if not descended from the lower animals, and 
man is a being of special creation? In one sense of the word, I 
have already answered that in another chapter. It is because we 
were created with the endowments of instincts, emotions, passions, 
and appetites necessary for our preservation and perpetuation, which 
continually impels us to act, just as the steam in the engine, and 
that we were given a reason to regulate, and free will and power 
to use them within the "limits of their legitimate domain." When 
we dethrone reason, which is done when we give free vent to the 
impelling forces within us, then we pass beyond the ''limits' of 
their legitimate domain," and anger becomes vengence, love becomes 
lust, modesty or decency becc>me shamelessness, appetite becomes 
gluttony and drunkenness, etc. Does that not answer satisfactorily 
the foregoing question? a, f. y. 

Is it not a strange action of evolution that would give a male 
ape the perceptive faculty to see that a beard, which did not as yet 
exist, if "acquired," would "charm the opposite sex," and which gave 
the male ape such powers that all he needed to do to acquire a 



483 

beard was to naturally, or sexually select it, yet denies the offspring 
— man — of those male apes the power of even retaining what he has 
— as, for instance, the hair on the top of his head — or of getting rid 
of the beard which he must shave in order to get rid of it? Just 
think of the remedies men make use of in trying to retain the hair 
on the top of their heads, yet they cannot retain it, while our male 
ai^e ancestors, if evolutionists are to be believed, could even "acquire" 
that which they did not have. There seems to be a discrepancy 
here somewhere in evolution, is there not? 

No wonder an evolutionist '"would as soon be descended from 
tlie * * * monkey * * * or that old baboon," who covild 
"acquire" hair where they wanted to, yea, could even denude the 
hair from their faces through "sexual selection" (88:686), making 
them look like having billy-goat whiskers or beards, no doubt, as 
from the "most highly educated" and civilized modern day "savages" 
who burn out the eyes of others, etc. etc., but who cannot even retain 
the hair they have on the top of their heads, let alone "acquiring" 
it. He no doubt had felt the utter helplessness which his theory 
teaches in regard to the male ape's power for "acquiring" hair which 
he himself could not acquire when he said that, for his picture in 
the front of his book, which contains the information about the 
male ape's power of acquiring hair where they wanted it, shows him 
with quite a bald spot on the top of his head, and with a luxuriant 
growth of a beard. It is a wonder that fact had not opened his 
eyes to the utter impossibility of such a theory as his for the ori- 
gin of the beard m man, for it is not hardly probable that he en- 
joyed the task of keeping the flies off' his head, and would there- 
fore have "acquired" hair on his head if he had had only the power 
of his male ape i^rogenitors who could acquire hair or beards at 
will. 

By way of digression, I will add here for the benefit of young 
or old ladies, who have gentlemen callers, that they must not at 
once conclude that their callers have designs on them, simply be- 
cause they might have cultivated a luxuriant growth of billy-goat 
whiskers or beards during the time they have been calling on you, 
but that they probably read about how the magnetic currents run 
in them, and they want to protect a delicate throat or a little bron- 
chial trouble, probably, having no intention to "charm" you with 
their hairy acquisitions. So don't be too confident that you are the 



484 

"his world" when he should cultivate a beard during the time he 
calls on you. I am giving this only as a piece of advice, for many 
an object has been lost in the end by being too over-confident. 

"It seems at first sight a monstrous supposition that the jet- 
blackness of the negro should have been gained through sexual 
selection; but this view is supported by various analogies, and we 
know that negroes admire their own color. * * * ipj^g color of 
the face differs much more widely in the various kinds of monkeys 
than it does in the races of men; and we have some reason to be- 
lieve that the red, blue, orange, almost white and black tints of 
their skins, even when common to both sexes, as well as the 
bright colors of their fur, and the ornamental tufts about the head, 
have all been acquired through sexual selection" (88:) 

According to that, all the various colors which we behold in 
man and in animals are not due to a Creator who specially created 
these colors, be it in man, birds or animals, but that they are due 
to "sexual selection." If sexual selection would only show its powers 
now to man, as it did to his animal ancestors, how quick the race 
problem in this country would be settled, eh? 

It is strange that the negro today has not the power, through 
sexual selection, to acquire a color that would be satisfactory to 
some fire-eating politicians, and others who say that the "town I 
come from they do not allow a 'nigger' to stay in over night,", as 
a white, burly ball player once said, according to the report in the 
daily papers, when it was so easy for our monkey ancestors to "ac- 
quire through sexual selection" red, blue, orange, almost white and 
black tints of their skins, etc., is it not? Is not the evolution ab- 
surdity about becoming a sickly "bumf oozlery ?" a. f. y. 

"Mr. Mivart asks * * * ^f natural selection be so potent, 
and if high browsing be so great an advantage, why has not any 
other hoofed quadruped acquired a long neck and lofty stature, 
besides the giraffe? * * * The answer is not difficult, and can 
best be given by an illustration. In every meadow in England in 
which trees grow, we see the lower branches trimmed or planed to 
an extra level by the browsing of the horses or cattle; and what 
advantage would it be, for instance, to sheep, if kept there, [How 
about the horses?] to acquire slightly longer necks? In every dis- 
trict some one kind of animal will almost certainly be able to browse 
higher than the others; and it is almost equally certain that this 



485 

one kind alone could have its neck elongated for this purpose 
through natural selection and the effects of increas ed use" (173:211). 

Here is a warning to you, who do much "rubber-necking," that 
you might find yourself, the first thing you know, with an elon- 
gated neck "through natural selection and the effects of increased 
use" in watching other people's doings. 

But do you believe that the giraffe "acquired" his long neck 
through high browsing?" Why are there no long-necked animals 
among animals in other couutries where there are no giraffes and 
where there was just as much need for high browsing as in the 
, countries where the giraffes were natives, if the elongation of their 
necks was simply due to "natural selection and the effects of in- 
creased use?" Why is it that the feet of Chinese girls are always 
normal when they are born, despite the fact that their parents 
"selected" for thousands of years that they should be "modified" 
in size by binding them? 

The long neck of the giraffe is due to the fact that he was 
specially created with a long neck. One would think from reading 
literature on evolution, that "natural selection" is as powerful a 
thing with evolutionists, as God is with us "superstitions" special 
creationists. Here is some more of it. 

"The more remarkable cases of tree-frogs, which resemble bark, 
and of the so-called leaf-butterflies, which when at rest are indis- 
tinguishable from leaves; and the existence of such cases is a 
stumbling-block [How many "stumbling-blocks" evolutionists are 
haunted with] in the way of all theories save the theory of natural 
selection. For according to the theory of natural selection each 
species of animals will be characterized by that shade of color 
which is most advantageous to the species in the struggle for ex- 
istelice" ^164:21, Vol. 2). 

Here it may be seen that tree-frogs even can acquire a color 
resembling bark, through natural selection, while we poor descend- 
ants of them — for frogs are in the chain of evolution somewhere 
between the "organless organism," moneron and man, hence they 
must have been our progenitors millions of years ago, and, no 
doubt took the first step, under "appropriate conditions," toward 
becoming the progenitors of beings who kept on "modifying" them- 
selves, under "appropriate conditions," through "natural selection," 
until the bald-headed descendant — man, of the aije-like progenitor 



486 

became evolved — cannot even retain, through naticral selection., the 
hair on the top of our heads, let alone "acquiring" that which 
might be "most advantageous" to us. Would it not be an advant- 
age to a bald-headed man to have hair on the top of his head so 
as to keep him from catching a cold, or for keeping oflf the flies, 
or for adding to his appearance so as to "charm the opposite sex"? 
If so, and if there is anything in the "natural selection" theory of 
evolution, then why is man denied the power that apes, monkeys, 
giraffes, frogs and leaf-butterflies had, who could, through natural 
selection, "acquire" those things which were the "most advantageous" 
to them? Has the process of evolution ceased because man has 
not the power to acquire things as the animals are supposed to 
have had? 

We are told that "evolution can end only in the establishment 
of the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness" (127:530). 

But is that true when animals could acquire, through natural 
selection, what was "most advantageous" to them, yet man cannot 
even retain, let alone acquire, hair on the toj) of his bald head, a 
thing which would unquestionably make him more perfect and 
happier than a bald head? I think when it comes right down to 
the point it will be found that evolution is a very poor substitute 
for a God and a. special creation. What say you? 

"Natural selection is a slow process, and the same favorable 
conditions must long endure in order that any marfied effect should 
thus be produced" (173:). 

If then the first hornless animal that tried to start the develop- 
ment of horns had a condition surrounding it that was favorable to 
such a slow process as natural selection is, is it possible that such 
favorable conditions could long endure when the physical condition 
of the earth constantly undergoes changes? Supposing the first 
animal that ever attempted to develop horns, which acquisition 
would, no doubt, have been a "marked effect," was driven from its 
local environments from time to time, a thing which is highly prob- 
able, then how could natural selection which is a "slow i^rocess," 
produce "any marked effect" — horns, if the "same favorable condi- 
tions" must long endure? If the same favorable conditions have for 
thousands of years endured, then why are not the "marked effects" 
— abnormal feet, found in the newly born Chinese girl baby? 

"If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any 



487 

species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, 
it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been pro- 
duced by natural selection" (173:). 

I will let another writer comment on that quotation for he has 
a better way of expressing himself than I have. Here is what he 
says: 

"Why did Mr. Darwin carefully use the word 'species' in the 
above stipulation instead of the word heing? Evidently it was a 
matter of shrewd precaution; for, had he stipulated 'any part of the 
structure of any being' he would just have annihilated his own the- 
ory by jjroving, as he did, that the mammary glands of every 
mother throughout the class of mammals are developed 'exclusively,' 
not for her own good but for the good of other beings! But as 
carefully as this precaution aims to guard the difficulty, it falls fatally 
short, for the mammary glands of the first mammal niother were de- 
veloped (if developed at all) for the benefit of all the mammal 'spe- 
cies' on earth, since they all come from her hy transmutation! 
How much does Mr. Darwin's theory lack of being annihilated, then, 
according to his own agreement" (167:510)':' a. f. y. 

"In all cases the new and improved forms of life tend to sup- 
plant the old and unimproved forms * * * New varieties con- 
tinually take the place of and supplant the parent form * * * 
New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and extermi- 
nate the older" (173:264, 266, 413). 

I will let the same writer comment on that also. He says: 

"Man should now be the only living species on this earth, since 
every form below him through which his line of descent has pro- 
gressed would have successfully and 'inevitably' succumbed and been 
exterminated as soon as each improved form had made its appear- 
ance! [That is so, is it not?] The fact, therefore, that we now have 
a hundred thousand species of living animals known to zoology, all 
of which have survived that inevitahle extermination which is and 
must be the necessary result of evolution, if it be a true theory, 
shows conclusively that we have one hundred thousand living wit- 
nesses now on earth demonstrating the utter fallacy of Mr. Darwin's 
hypothesis" (167:514)! 

I will now give one more for him to answer, and then I will 
go it myself again on the "hayseed" or "presumptuous ignorance" 
style. 



488 

"Under very simple conditions of life a high organism would 
be of no service" (173:100). 

He says: "How, then, in the name of science and common 
reason did natural selection go to work to transmute a moneron or 
a simple mollusk into a higher organism, [By 'blind chance,' proba- 
bly] since a high organism would be of no 'profit to such simple 
creatures, and since natural selection, as he tells us in numerous 
places, can only work for the profit of a being" (167:515). 

Oh, I suppose evolutionists thought no one would "bother too 
much about the cause of things," and, therefore, they could "bum- 
foozle" all the peojDle all the time with their absurdities. But it 
seems they made more than one miscalculation, did they not? a. f. y. 

We have seen that one factor in evolution seems to be about 
as powerful as the mortal mind in Christian Science; that one is 
natural selection. We will now see what another power in evolu- 
tion can do, which is called sexual select. on. 

"With many birds, it appears as if the head and neck had been 
divested of feathers through sexual selection, to exhibit the brightly- 
colored skin. * * * There is nothing surprising in a partial loss 
of hair having been esteemed as an ornament by our ape-like pro- 
genitors, for we have seen that innumerable strange characters have 
been thus esteemed by animals of all kinds, and have consequently 
been gained through sexual selection" (88:686). 

That seems to explain why men sometimes have bald heads. 
It is because "a partial loss of hair having been esteemed as an 
ornament by our ape-like progenitors." It seems that our "ape-like 
progenitors" must have been the "chosen" favorites of some all- 
powerful "blind chance," if one is to judge from the power they 
had in acquiring things, be it a beard, to charm the opposite sex, 
or in divesting themselves of hair whenever they esteemed it an 
ornament. No wonder an evolutionist would as soon be a descend- 
ant of such, as from a modern-day "savage" who burns out the eyes 
of his enemy, etc., etc., but who cannot keep himself from becom- 
ing bald-headed. 

"We know that the faces of several species of monkeys, and 
large surfaces at the jjosterior end of the body of other species, 
have been denuded of hair; and this we may safely attribute to 
sexual selection. * * * The hair, however, appears to have been 



489 

removed, not for the sake of nudity, but that the color of the skin 
may be more fully displayed" (88:686^ 

What powerful beings the monkeys were, eh? Through sexual 
selection they denuded themselves of hair in order to display the 
color of the skin, while we, their descendants, must use a razor if 
we want to denude our faces of hair so that others may behold the 
color of the skin of our faces. 

'"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, 
which could not possibly have been formed bj' numerous, succes- 
sive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. 
But I can find out no such case" (173:146). 

How about the generating organ in the female? Is that not a 
complex organ? Will evolutionists please tell us hosv the transition, 
by slight vioJifications, was made when the generation of fowls 
from eggs without was changed to the generation of mammals from 
eggs within? Right here is a case that alone "would absolutely 
break down" the Darwinian theorj-, would it not? 

I will now give a brief summary of some of the things that 
are to be found in the Darwinian theory which I have touched on 
in this book so far, and will let you a. f. y. who are the silly peo- 
ple" (164:110, Vol. 1), the ones who reject the Darwinian theory, — 
of which I am one, — or those who accept it. 

That theory says that the chicken acquired the instinct of 
breaking its way out of the egg-shell by "practice at a more ad- 
vanced age," but it does not tell us how the chicken got out of 
the egg-shell so it could attain to a "more advanced age" to begin 
the practice of breaking the egg-shell. It also tells us that young 
mammals did the same thing in learning how to suck the breasts, 
but does not tell us what the young did for sustenance until it 
arrived at a "more advanced age." It tells us that the origin of 
the beard in man is through transmission from the male ape-like 
progenitors who "acquired their beards as an ornament to charm 
or excite the opposite sex," but another authority unknowingly shat- 
ters that theory by telling us that the beard is specially designed to 
warm the upper part of the man's body because the magnetic currents 
pass through man from the top downward. It says that monkeys, 
apes, etc., denuded themselves of hair and feathers through se-vual 
selection, while we, their descendants, must use razors to do that. 
It tells us that the various colors of red, blue, orange, etc., was 



490 

acquired by monkeys through sexual selection, yet we seem to be 
at our wit's ends to solve the colored race problem. It tells us 
that giraffes had their necks elongated through "high browsing," 
yet the Chinese have for thousands of years tried to modify the 
feet of their daughters, by binding the feet, but despite this 
"selection" the Chinese baby-girls' feet are normal when the girls 
are born. It tells us that birds had divested their heads and necks 
of feathers, through sexual selection, to exhibit the bright col- 
ored skin, and that our ape-like progenitors esteemed it as an 
ornament in a partial losing of their hair, etc., etc. Now, who are 
the "silly loeople," the ones who believe in the Darwinian theory 
for the origin of things, as just summarized hefe, or those who 
believe in a living, conscious, intelligent, and omnipoteiit Creator, 
who specially created all beings, endowing them, from the begin- 
ning, with the necessary instincts and powers for their preservation 
and perpetuation, and that man was created a man from tho begin- 
ning, and is no descendant from a lower animal, and who, there- 
fore, reject the Darwinian theory? a. f. y. 

This is what a defender of the Darwinian theory had to say 
about those who reject that theory: 

"We sometimes hear silly people reject the Darwinian theory 
on grounds of 'dignity,' it being supposed that we are in some in- 
comp!rehensible way, 'degraded' by the discovery that our remote 
ancesters were dumb beasts" (164:110, Vol. 1). 

I can assure you that it is not on grounds of dignity that I 
reject the Darwinian theory anymore so than it is on the grounds 
of dignity that I reject Catholicism, Christian Science, etc., but 
because it is an absurdity, an impossibility, a species of atheism, 
and is squarely against the light of reason, common sense and 
sound intellect! That is why I reject it, and believe in a special 
creation by God Almighty! 

Surely, if anyone would have occasion to deny the existence 
of a Grod I would have it, for my prayers in that which I most 
earnestly desired were not answered; I have read many works on 
evolution, atheism and infidelity, and if it had not been for a 
thorough sifting of the matter, with the light of reason and intel- 
lect, I would no doubt have been an atheist today, so intense has 
been the mental struggle through which I have passed. As a 
priest said to me that I had too much time to think when I was 



491 

bed-ridden. I could not help but think, and think I did with all 
the power that I could, and I found it to be true what Bacon said 
when he said. 

"A little ijhilosophy inclineth men's mind to atheism, but 
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion" — 
that is, a belief in God. 

Probably if some of the atheists had not had some trouble with 
autocratic, domineering ecclesiastics, or some infidels had not been 
defeated in their iDolitical aspirations, through church people, they 
would not have vented their spleens the way they did by writing 
and lecturing against God. They simply bit off their noses to spite 
their faces, and having a good command of language they have suc- 
ceeded in "bumfoozlihg" with their "verbiage," the shallow brained, 
who like to be known as taodern^ most highly educated thinkers. 

But as I am only a hayseed ., I was too ignorant to be flattered 
by the high sounding phrase of being a modern thinker, therefore, 
I was not carried away by that wave of the "highest intellectual 
progress," which seems to have swept so many before it. As I want 
to make the theory, that man descended from a lower animal, so 
repugnant that no one will, after reading this book, ever again de- 
fend or advocate it, I will continue the subject under inquiry, as 
there are, no doubt, some seemingly inexplicable difficulties con- 
nected with the fact of special creation that opponents of it would 
like to have answered, and which I will attempt to answer to the 
best of my limited ability. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Evolution and Special Creation — Continued. 

We will first look at a few more views of the theory of evolu- 
tion of man from a lower animal, before answering some of the 
seeming difficulties connected with the fact of special creation. 

"The progenitors of Birds and the progenitors of Man at a very 
remote period were probably one. But at a certain point they 
parted company, and diverged hopelessly and forever. [I do not 
see why, if evolution is true]. The Birds took one road, the Ver- 
tebrates another; the Vertebrates kept to the ground, [How about 
the tree climbing apes?] the birds took to the air. [How about 
the ostrich?] The consequences of this expedient in the case of 
the Birds were fatal. They forever forfeited the possibility of be- 
coming human. [Yes, but if evolution is true, they no doubt were 
the remote ance'&tors of winged angels.] For observe the cost to 
them of the aerial mode of life. The wing was made [By whom or 
what?] at the expense of the hand. * * * Birds have the bones 
for a hand, [Because built on the general plan of creation] could 
have had a hand, but they waived their right" (177:187). 

Waived their right! How glad some of us would be if we 
could only waive our right to a stubby beard or a bald head. What 
powerful beings our progenitors must have been at a "very remote 
period." 

"Go back to a time when man was just emerging from the 
purely animal state, [Like the first unhatched chicken which emerged 
from its egg-shell at a "more advanced age," when it began then 
the practice of breaking the egg-shell till it became such a strong 
habit that it could be transmuted as an instinct to its offspring 
at an earlier age^ when he was in the condition described by Mr. 
Darwin, 'a tailed quadruped probably arboreal in its habits,' and 
when in his glimmering consciousness mind was feeling about for 
its first uses in snatching some novel success in the Struggle for 
Life. * * * When threatened by a comrade, or pressed by an 
alien-species, he called in a simple foreign aid to helji him in the 



493 

Struggle — the branch of a tree. * * * This broken branch be- 
came the first weapon. It was the father of all clubs. * * * 
This invention of the club was soon followed by another change. 
To use a club effectively, or to keep a good look-out for enemies 
[It is a wonder he did not "acquire a pair of eyes in the back of 
his head, by natural selection^ so that he might have seen the 
enemies approach from behind, being that he could acquire other 
things by natural selectioni or for food, a man must stand erect. 
[As the captain wild goose does while he stands in watch for hunt- 
ers while the rest eat green wheat. No doubt that is the reason 
his neck became elongated. He had to rubber-neck to see if any 
hunters were making a sneak on the flock, as I once did when I 
killed half of a flock of them with one shot. There were foiir wild 
geese on a patch of wheat within gun-shot range from a weedy 
com field. I crawled on all fours — and I suppose if the same /avora- 
hle conditions had long endured., natural selection would no doubt 
have changed me into a quadruped — for about a quarter of a mile, 
and every few moments I would "rubber-neck" — and I suppose if 
the same favorable conditions had long endured, natural selection 
would certainly, if evolution is true, have elongated my neck as it 
did the giraffe's — to see whether the geese had taken flight yet or 
not. Well, I finally got what I thought was about as near as I 
could get to them without the captain discovering me and giving 
the warning so they would take flight in the opposite direction from 
me, that I fired one shot killing two of the four that were there.] 
This alters the centre of gravity of the body, and as the art be- 
comes a habit, subsidiary changes slowly take place in other parts. 
In time the erect position becomes confirmed. Man owes what 
Bums calls his 'heaven-erected face' to the Struggle for Life. [Just 
listen to that!] How recent this change is, how new the attitude 
still is to him, is seen from the simple fact that even yet he has 
not attained the power of retaining the erect position long. Most 
men sit down when they can, [And so does a dog, in one sense of 
the word] and so unnatural is the standing position, so unstable 
the equilibrium, that when slightly sick or faint, Man cannot stand 
at all" (117:193). 

Is that the reason, as just given, why man cannot stand when 
he is sick or faint? Why does an animal lie down at all if that is 
its natural position to stand on all fours? I was raised on the farm, 



494 

and know whereof I speak, and I must say that whenever a chicken, 
a hog, a horse, a dog, or an ox was sick they would lie downl' 
Now, if a man's erect position is unnatural because he must lie 
down when sick, then why does the animal lie down when sick? 
It is, as with man — because the weight of the body is not as 
quickly reduced in weight in proportion that the body is weakened 
by sickness, and as gravitation is ever the same, the weakening of 
the body weakens the supporters — legs, so that they cannot sup- 
port the weight of the sick or faint body which has not and can- 
not be reduced in weight in the same - proportion that sickness 
weakens the body. Is that not a better reason then, whj- men can- 
not stand when sick than that given by the apologist of evolution? 
And if it is, is that not a weak argument for the theory of the 
development of man from an animal? a. f. y. 

Again, why should man, or even an animal, lie down* when 
sick if the following is an idea acceptable to Haeckel, and is true? 

"The bodj' of man, like that of other animals [man must still 
be an animal according to this] is merely an intricate machine, 
and that its movements take place under the same mehanical laws 
as the movements of an automaton of human construction" (Des- 
cartes) (r)0:44). 

Did you ever see a machine of man's construction lie down 
when it gets choked up or out of order and stop working? If 
not, then that is a poor comparison of "making a man's body a 
machine that is moved under the "same mechanical laws" as that 
of the "movements of an automaton," is it not? a. f. y. 

"Sense after sense has assumed distinct existences after another 
in response to stimuli from without. One set of experiences after 
another has been co-ordinated in harmony with combinations 
existing without" (164:399, Vol. 2). 

The mortal mind, which does not exist, in Christian Science, 
yet created the false senses of man, meets a strong competitor here, 
indeed. Just think of it! "sense after sense has assumed distinct 
existence in response to stimuli from without." That is enough to 
drive a person into believing, as a preference, in a special creation 
where all things were conjured into existence in one night by some 
Divine enchantment. Such an absurdity for the origin of the 
senses; and yet that would be true if life originated, by spontaneous 
generation, [A something coming from nothing with the interven- 



495 

tion of nothing.] in a moneron^ an organless organism^ in the bottom 
of the sea! How in the name of common sense could, for instance, 
the sense of sight receive stimuli from without when the eye did not 
as yet exist? Can nothing receive stimuli? How is it that the eyes 
are both in the front part of the head, instead of on the sides of the 
head as the ears are, or why not one in the back and one in the 
front, if they assumed distinct existence in response to stimuli from 
without? "Were there not just as many objects back of the head as 
in front, to give stimuli to an organ which would begin to form, like 
a boil does, when there would be sufficient stimuli to draw to a 
certain point, by the magnetic current or whatever else it was that 
began to draw substance to a certain point, which was the generat- 
ing seed, as it were, of what afterwards became a distinct sense of 
sight? ^^hy did not the sense of smell develop on the back of the 
head, instead of in the front of the head? If it had doiie so it 
might have been useful as a warning of danger sense from the ap- 
proaches of enemies from behind, would it not? 

We are once more then driven to the fact of a special creation 
which created the senses for a purpose, and their existence became 
distinct, not in response to stimuli from without, but to the growth 
of development from within in accordance with Grod's law? Is that 
not so? a. f y. 

We will now see what the construction of one of the senses is. 

"Within the human ear, firmly fastened in the tem^Doral bone, is 
a spirally coiled chamber, known as the cochlea. Within this cham- 
ber there is a very elastic membrane, and on it lie the so-called 
fihres of Cort'u which are a series of fibrous filaments side by side, 
with a great regularity, ["Blind chance" seems to be doing quite 
well (?)] so as to present somewhat the ai^pearance of the key-board 
on a piano. It is now held by physiologists that this row of fibres 
is really a key-board, and that each fibre is set in vibration only by 
a particular musical note, exactly as an A tuning fork is set vibrat- 
ing when A is sounded near it" (164:61, Vol. 2). 

"Selection improved, step by step, such particular modifications 
as proved to be useful, [As, for instance, a bald head.] and thus 
eventually, in the course of many million years [Many decillion 
years, under "appropriate conditions" would sound more "scientific."] 
created those wonderful instruments, the eye and the ear, [By "blind 
chance," as the key-board of the piano was created by "blind chance,'' 



496 

and without a preconceived design.'] which we prize so highly; their 
structure is so remarkably purposive that they might well lead to 
the erroneous assumption of a 'creation on a preconceived design.' 
The peculiar character of each sense-organ and its specific nerve has 
thus been gradually evolved by use and exercise — that is, by adap- 
tation — and has been transmitted by heredity [Just like the small 
feet of the Chinese women have been transmitted to their baby 
daughters by heredity] from generation to generation'" (60:295). 

After reading the two foregoing quotations as to the nature or 
construction of the ear and its origin, as given by an evolutionist, 
can you, if you ever did, still believe there is no God, that evo- 
lution is true, in the sense that it developed any organism or organ 
without a preconceived design, and that man was not specially 
created man from the beginning, with distinct organs and with the 
necessary instincts' emotions, passions, and appetites for his preser- 
vation and perpetuation? Was the piano developed by the key A, 
for instance, gradually evolving itself in response to stimuli from 
toithout: then B in like manner, and so on until the keyboard as- 
sumed a distinct eodstence? Surely you have more sense than to 
believe in such a proposition. And if you have, will not the same 
common sense tell youth at the ear, or any other organ or organism, 
must have had an intelligent designer who, with a preconceived 
design, created them, just as the piano had an intelligent being 
who, designed and manufactured — created, the piano for a purpose? 

It does not, — as an evolutionist asserts for special creation 
that it is "based on authority" (175:1), — require authority to 
believe that does it? Neither does it require authority to believe 
in a special creation by an intelligent power, who with a precon- 
ceived design designed and created things for a purpose. Reason 
and common sense is the authority for sjjecial creation, and not the 
"so-called 'revelations' of all the ecclesiastical religions of the earth," 
as evolutionists would like to have us believe. Is that not so? 
a. f. V. 

"So wonderful is love, and so immeasurably important is its 
influence on mental life, on the most varied functions of the 
medullary tube, that in this point, more than any other, 'sujaer- 
natural' cassation seems to mock every natural explanation. And 
yet, notwithstanding all this, the comparative history of evolution 
leads us back very clearly and indubitably to the oldest and sim- 



497 

plest source of love, to the elective affinity of two differing cells; 
the sperm-cell and egg-cell" (80:304, Vol. 2). 

Will evolutionists please tell us whether or not love existed in 
the organless organism, moneron? If it did not— and how could 
an organless organism be possessed of love when it had not more 
than one cell ? — whence then is love if from nothing, nothing comes? 
If it is said that it is spontaneously generated then why does it 
not exist in all living beings? 

When I was on the farm I saw that male animals, after they 
had satisfied their procreative passions would turn around and spurn 
the female from them. Will any evolutionist dare say that the 
love existing between a virtuous man and woman is nothing more 




than the "elective affinity of two differing cells," such as only ex- 
isted in the animals of my observation? Yet is that not what the 
foregoing definition of love is according to the theory of evolution? 
What a rank insult that is to degrade the sweet, tender, and 
noble emotion of love down to a merely physical appetite, "affinity 
of two differing cells!" No doubt those who, when married, barely 
pass through the honeymoon time without having a quarrel could 
say that what they mistook for love was merely an "affinity of two 
differing cells." But that is not love such as many have experi- 
enced it. Nor is such the love with which the Creator endowed us. 



498 

The lewd may regard love as only an an affinity of tv}0 difiering 
cells^ but by the virtuous and pure-minded it is not regarded as 
such. 

Take for for instance the cut here of a picture of a woman 
with a countenance that betokens virtue, modesty, and amiability, 
will any one dare say that no virtuous man could come into her 
presence (if she were in delicate gown it might be different) with- 
out having a thought of an "affinity of two differing cells," or if 
attracted to her it would only be a sexual feeling, as a professor 
once said that what "passess for love in men is really only sexual 
feeling?" . 

If what passes for love in men is only sexual feeling then why 
do men, when disappointed in love often deal desperately with 
themselves, and many have their lives blighted by it? If man's love 
for woman is only sexual feeling then why does he not go to a 
lewd woman and have "an affinity of two differing cells," when he 
has been disappointed, or his affections have not been reciprocated 
by the object of his supposed love, instead of doing as many do, 
resort to drink to drown to forgetfulness their disappointment? Is 
it not offering a rank insult to virtuous men and women to say 
that the source of the love between them is only an "affinity of 
two differing cells," and a blasphemous insult to that sweet, tender, 
and noble emotion with which the Creator endowed every normal 
human being? And I say here that any who speak of love as dis- 
ease^ or of youthful love as calf love, or of girls chasing men, 
in order to land them to marry them, that such are soured, dis- 
peptic, disappointed, immoral pessimists! They have sought and 
Ivved in impure atmospheres, and of course, love cannot thrive or 
exist in impurity. 

That evolutionists are in error when they say that the source 
of love is the "elective affinity of two differing cells," is proven by 
the many unhappy marriages, in which children have been born, the 
generation of which required the affinity of two differing cells. Is 
that not proof positive then that love has not its source as evolu- 
tionists would have us believe it is? But what else can be expected 
of scientists' who deny the existence of a Creator who specially en- 
dowed humau beings with the emotions, passions, and appetites nec- 
essary for their preservation and perpetuation? As they must give 
a theory for tho origin of things, when they deny the existence of 



499 

a Creator, they give us theories for the origin of things even though 
such theories do offer a rank insult to virtuous men and v?omen. 

Yet there were those who eulogized such scientists, saying: 

"He has endeavored — and I think with complete success — to 
show that there is not, and never was, and never can be, the creator 
of anything. Haeckel is one of the bitterest enemies of the church, 
and is, therefore, one of the bravest friends of man" (165:197). 

And I dare say that if any one had told Mr. Ingersoll that the 
love that existed between himself and his wife, was only a sexual 
feeling on his part, and had its source in the affinity of twojdiffer- 
ing cells, he would very quickly have resented such a low and rank 
insult. Here is that which undoubtedly proves my assertion, Inger. 
soil on "Woman's Love": 

"It takes a hundred men to make an encampment, but one 
woman can make a home. I not only admire woman as the most 
beautiful object ever created, [By whom or what? Spontaneous 
generation acting through unconscious causes and blind chance?] 
but I reverence her [as do all virtuous men] as the redeeming 
glory of humanity, the sanctuaries of all the virtues, the pledge of 
perfect qualities of heart and head. It is not just nor right to lay 
the sins of men at the feet of women. [Like some pessimists do.] 
It is because women are so much better than men, that their faults 
are considered greater. A man's desire [which, his "sperm cell"?] 
is the foundation of his love, [which is only a sexual feeling, 
according to evolutionists.] but a woman's desire [What desire? 
An affinity for a differing cell?] is born of her love. The one 
thing in this world that is constant, the one peak that rises above 
all clouds, the one window in which the light forever burns, [Then 
there must be a life beyond the grave, which is denied by "one 
of the bravest friends of man."] the one star that darkness cannot 
quench, is woman's love. It rises to the greatest heights, it sinks 
to the lowest depths, it forgives the most cruel injuries. [Why? 
That it may have an affinity with a differing cell?] It is'perennial 
of life, and grows in every climate. Neither coldness [nor neglect, 
harshness nor cruelty can extinguish it. A woman's love is the 
perfume of the heart. [That is quite different from] that of the 
theory of "one of the bravest friends of man."] This is the real 
love [which had its source in the affinity of two differing cells in 
a bawdy house, which is jjossible if evolution is true.] that subdues 



500 

the earth; the love that has wrought all miracles [I thought that 
he did not believe in miracles] of art; that gives us music all the 
way from the cradle song to the grand closing symphony that 
bears the soul [The existence of which is denied by "one of the 
bravest friends of man."] away on wings of fire. A love that is 
greater than power, sweeter than life, [How are those to know that 
who have not yet had an affinity with a differing cell, if the source 
of love is in the "elective affinity of two differing cells?] and 
stronger than death" (57:Mar. 5, 1902). 

It does not hardly seem possible that the same persgn who 
could pay such an eloquent tribute to woman's love could at the 
same time eulogize as "one of the bravest friends of man" one who 
said that the source of love is in the "elective affinity of two dif- 
fering cells," reducing love to the mere level of a physical appetite. 

But it seems that people will bite off their noses to spite 
their faces if thereby they can get even for a fanciful wrong com- 
mitted against them by a certain class of people. Any one who 
has ever truly loved a virtuous person knows, through disappoint- 
ment in love, that love has not its source in an affinity of two dif- 
fering cells, as evolutioniats would have us believe it is. 

They also tell us that "When * * * very closely examined 
under the miscrope * * * the human egg cannot be distin- 
guished from that of most other Mammals either in its immature 
or in its more complete condition. Its form, its size, its composi- 
tion, are approximately the same in all" (80:135, Vol. 1). 

If that is the case — and I do not question it — then we may 
assume that the cells are the same in all human beings, and if so, 
why then this preference of man or woman for the one or the 
other? Does that not prove then that "Love is an activity of the 
soul and riot an efflorescence of the physical functions"? (179:1411) 
an affinity of two differing cells? If love had its source, as evolu- 
tionists would have us believe, then why are not all married people 
happy? The fact that they are not proves conclusively that the 
theory of the evolutionists, for the source of love is wrong, and 
proves that love is an endowment to human beings by the Creator. 
If then the evolutionists ask why, if love is an endowment of the 
Creator, it becomes seemingly cold sometimes between married 
people, I will let others explain the causes, or give the reasons, 



501 

because I am not married and could, therefore, give only my obser- 
vations along that line. 

"Arithmetic would have to be strained to compute the num- 
ber of men who have utterly slain love, and rendered their homes 
desolate, by words, and what is infinitely worse, actions, offensive 
to the fine susceptibilities, delicacy, and sense of propriety, of a 
loving wife" (3:30). 

If a divorce should result in such a case it, no doubt, would 
be on the grounds of "indignities." 

"It does not want drunkenness, blows, bruises, clenched fists, 
oaths, to work sacrilege in the temjole of the home; * * * only 
a cold look where the love should burn; only a sneer where there 
ought to be a smile" (152:96). 

In those cases it is supposed that love existed at marriage. 
We will now see if love is always the prime factor in marriages. 

"Ecclesiastical codes, past and present, have sanctioned and 
continue to bless every shade of unnatural, [As for instance May 
and December marrying each other,] immoial and dehasinff (Italics 
are mine), union. [As for instance, an Eastern heiress marrying 
some hard struggling, brawny, poor young man of character and 
virtue in the new Western country, of which the daily papers from 
time to time give half page write ups(?)]. It im^joses the mockery 
of a 'divine benediction' upon marriages contracted from the most 
unworthy motives in all human nature. It holds as 'spiritually 
indissoluble' marriages which mock religion and stultify the indi- 
vidual honor of the men and women concerned. [Well, I suppose, 
that is their business.] Such are the marriages contracted from 
political, financial [This seems to be a hard blow on our bankrupt 
nobility.] or social considerations; or in fact, from countless other 
motives than mutual respect and love" (179:376). To that may be 
added : 

"In many a marriage made for gold, 

The bride is bought and the bridegroom sold." 

Now, when marriages are contracted from such motives, can it 
be wondered at that there are so many loveless and unhappy mar- 
riages, as it is claimed there are. and is it the fault of the Creator, 
when He has given us a reason, free will, and power to do as one 
chooses to do? 

It may be possible that at marriage one or the other may marry 



502 

from a motive of true love, and if the non-loving person is of a 
sympathetic nature love may be, when it is seen that one's mate 
tries all one can to please the other, brought about, for it is asked: 

"What can draw the heart into the fullness of love so quick 
as sympathy?" 

Sympathy, then, it seems, is a good motor force with which to 
bring about love and is, no doubt, good for retaining it, also, where 
love already exists. It may be seen then that the source of love is 
not an "affinity of two different cells," but is an "activity of the 
soul." which is the seat of the emotions. We have now one more 
theory of evolution demolished, have we not, when it is seen that 
love is an endowment of the Creator, and has not its source as 
evolutionists would have us believe it has? a. f. y. 

"We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of each slight varia- 
tion or individual differences" (173:158). 

"Other implications concerning the divine character must be 
recognized by those who contend that each species arose by divine 
fiat, it is hardly supposable that Infinite power is exercised in 
trivial actions effecting trivial changes. [No, and this will be made 
plain, why]. Yet the organic world in its hundreds of thousands 
of species shows in each sub-division multitudious forms which, 
though unlike enough to be classed as specifically distinct, diverge 
from one another only in small details which have no significance 
in relation to the life led. Sometimes the number of specific dis- 
tinctions is so great that did they result from human agency we 
should call them whimsical" (170:423, 424, Vol. 1). 

We will now attempt to answer the above two quotations. In 
doing so we must take into consideration two factors which- play 
an important part in the slight variation or individual differences, 
and in the trivial (■lianges, which if they resulted from human 
agency we should call them whimsical, and these factors are the 
mental influence of the mother on the fetus during gestation, and 
the external forces on the growing animal, or man. Of course, 
the materialistic scientists will hardly regard the first factor as a 
proposition worthy of their consideration for they do not believe in 
anything that is not material. But because they do not believe in 
it that does not make it not so. Let us see what others have to 
say about it. 

"Some of oiTr materialistic physiologists, being ignorant of 



503 

psychic forces, declare that imagination or excitement of the mother 
has no influence on the fetus, but that is ignoring a multitude of 
facts" (151:151, 152). "Physiology will be compelled to recognize 
it, that the true and only causes of these so-called spontaneous 
variations in the offspring of all species, are the constantly varying 
mental and vital perturbations of the mother as the results of the 
diversified shocks and impressions of one kind and another made 
upon her mind, and ultimately their reaction from the incorporeal 
structure of the mother upon the corporeal organism of the embry- 
onic being. * * * Monstrosities and all minor congenital varia- 
tions, even to the diversity of features, must be traced to the 
mental impression received by the mother from some shock of 
more or less -intensity during some impressible period of gestation. 

* * * How clearly this is illustrated by the well-known fact that 
human twins look so much more alike than children of separate 
births, even by the same parents; and but for the differently trans- 
mitted impressions from the father upon the two life germs, twins 
would be absolutely and in all cases so much alike as to be indis- 
tinguishable. [Which is the case with many twins one knows of.] 

* * * That the mental impression of the mother does actually 
fasten upon the child through her incorporeal vital organisms, 
whether such impression be in the form of a sudden shock or of a 
lasting memory, is proved by the well auchenticated fact, that many 
times children by a second husband resemble the first much more 
nearly than they do their real father, alone through the vivid mem- 
ory of the mother and her appreciation of the long dead but cher- 
ished first love. [That is a point, too, against the theory that love 
has its source in the "electric affinity of two different cells," is it 
not?J * * * rpjjg ^^^^ -g equally well authenticated that many 
a mother, through the cherished memory of an early love, and who 
died before marriage, has given to her children the likeness of her 
lost one, with whom she had sustained only a mental relationship. 
[That is another point against the .evolutionist's theory for the 
source of love, is it not?] * * * We can see at once why no 
two children appear or can appear alike, because it is utterly im- 
possible for any mother to pass during gestation through the same 
number, kind and intensity of mental shocks and vital perturba- 
tions" (167:463, 464, 466, 467). 

Do you now understand the "cause of each slight variation or 



504 

individual differences?" We will now see whether or not the same 
cause, for the trivial changes in other species, may not be the 
same as it is in human beings. 

"Domestic species being under the control of man, and being 
forced constantly to obey his behests, receive innumerable shocks 
of body and mind which wild animals are wholly free from. As 
any coercion of an animal against its will causes a mental pertur- 
bation, it is plain to see why domesticated animals are more liable 
to divergencies of structure than wild ones (167:464). 

That mental influences of the mother are made manifest on 
the embryo of beings, was a fact already recognized by the patri- 
archal shepherd, Jacob, where he put "green rods of poplar, and 
of almond, and of plane trees, and pilled them in part; so when 
the bark was taken off, in the parts that were pilled, their appeared 
whiteness: but the parts that were whole, remained green; and by 
this means the colour was divers. And he put them into the 
troughs, where the water was poured out; that when the flocks 
should come to drink, they might have the rods before their eyes, 
and in the sight of them might conceive. And it came to pass, 
that in the very heat of coition, the shee^D beheld the rods, and 
brought sjDotted and divers colors, and speckled" (Gen. 30:37-39). 

Will any one dare say now that the Bible contains no "Science"? 
Why every stock breeder ought to have a Bible in his barns. He 
might then work on a scientific i^lan when he wants to have cer- 
tain shades of color, etc, in his stock. As the Bible is regarded as 
a plenary inspired Book, then God no doubt inspired Jacob how he 
might get ahead of his father-in-law. Nothing like standing in 
with such a Jehovah, eh? 

Do you understand now why it is not "hardly supposable 
that Infinite Power is exercised in trivial actions effecting trivial 
changes," and why the "organic world in its hundreds of thousands 
of species shows in each sub-division multitudinous forms" without 
the Creator directly creating them so? After the Creator had 
created the male and female of each species, endowing them with 
the necessary instincts, passions and appetites for their preserva- 
tion and perpetuation, He no longer created directly or immediately 
any species, be it, i^lant. animal, or man, but does so indirectly or 
mediately. It is, as it were, man doing the i^Ianting and He 



505 

giving the increase through His law of growth with which He 
has endowed the universe. 

Let us take for an illustration the plant of corn. Grod had to 
create it at first, out of the earth just as it grows now, and which 
was not "conjured into existence in one night by some divine en- 
chantment," directly or immediately. But now, that man may see 
his nobility and power and free-will, He requires the co-operation 
of man in producing the corn. Man plants the com, and God 
gives the increase, but not always in an exact reproduction of the 
seed. These are some of the reasons why the corn is not all an 
exact reproduction of the seed; first, man may fertilize some ground 
which has long been under cultivation, and on such ground the 
corn may exceed in size the seed; secondly, he may not fertilize 
some of the ground, j-et with the same weather conditions, the com 
on such ground may be smaller than the seed. Again, man, in 
cultivating the corn, may plow or roll some dirt or clods against 
the growing plants so that they must necessarily grow crooked and 
even be drawfed in size, if they grow at all. Now, a person who 
would go through such fields of com, which may be side by side 
of each other, may see nuhhins of corn and also fine large ears of 
com, all produced from the same kind of seed, and under the same 
weather conditions. Can it be said here, then, that Infinite Power 
was the direct agency that caused these variations in the sizes of 
the stalks and the ears of corn, which did they result from human 
agency we should call them whimsiealf Hardly. 

God's laws of growth depend for their full development on, 
what might be called, external agencies, such as the cultivation and 
fertalization of soil, slope of ground, etc. Likewise is it with liv- 
ing beings, with the added influence of physical agencies, the food, 
climate, environment, etc., all contribute their share towards varia- 
bility, trivial changes. Yet these variations are bounded by fixed 
lines beyond which they cannot go or transmute themselves, even 
though it were under "appropriate conditions," extending over a 
period of millions of years. Do you believe it now? And is there 
any infraction of laws, supernatural miracles, in God once creating 
directly all species endowing thera with the necessary instincts, 
passions, appetites, and power of preserving and perpetuating their 
kind, making like begetting like? 

Evolution would require a constant infraction of the law that 



506 

like begets like, if it were true that man developed from an ani- 
mal, and the animal in turn developed from an organless organism^ 
Moneron, which originated life by spontaneous generation, making 
something come from nothing with the intervention of nothing. 
Which hypothesis is now apparent to you as the one presenting 
the least difficulties for the origin of organic beings, the evolution 
hypothesis or the special creation hypothesis such as I have form- 
ulated it? 

Have I turned the tables on the following? 

"Thus the hypothesis of special creations turns out to be worth- 
less by its deriviation ; worthless in its intrinsic incoherence; worth- 
less as absolutely without evidence [Is that so? Where is your 
evidence for evolution, except in your mistaken analogies and infer- 
ences?]: worthless in not supplying an intellectual need [Well it 
supplies my "hayseed," and "presumptuous ignorance" intellectual 
need all right. Probably it would not if it were of the "highest 
intellectual progress" brand, which believes in "blind chance" and 
unconscious non-purposive causes as the producers of things.] 
worthless as not satisfying a moral want. We must therefore con- 
sider it as counting for nothing, in opposition to any other hypo- 
thesis respecting the origin and organic beings (170:430, Vol. 1). 

Do you not think that the evolutionist was a little premature 
in making such an efPusive use of the adjective worthless, in con- 
nection with the hypothesis of a siDeci.il creation? a. f. y. 

"Without dwelling on the questior. recently raised, why during 
untold millions of years there existed on the Earth no beings en- 
dowed with capacities for wide thought and high feeling, we may 
content ourselves with asking why, at present, the Earth is largely 
peopled by creatures which inflict on one another so much suffer- 
ing? Omitting the human race, whose defects and miseries the 
current theology professes to account for, [But which I have shown 
that theology is mistaken in,] and limiting ourselves to the lower 
creation, what must we think of the countless different pain-inflict- 
ing appliances and instincts with which animals are endowed? 
* * * We have unmistakble proof that throughout all past time, 
there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong. 
How is this to be explained? [How by evolution, for instance, 
which claims that it always works for the bettering of things, when 
the organless organ is/n, moneron, which had no feelings did not 



507 

remain a moneron, if animals now must endure such bloodshed?] 
How happens it that animals were so designed as to render this 
bloodshed necessary? * * * Will any one who contends that 
organisms were specially designed, assert that they could not have 
been so designed as to prevent suffering? And if he admits that 
they could have been made so as to prevent suffering, will he as- 
sert that the Creator preferred making them in such ways as to 
inflict suffering (170:425, 426, Vol. 1)? 

Although having found the solution for the cause of the exist- 
ence of evil, misery and suffering, in the human realm, despite the 
existence of an omnipotent Being — which was that God governs the 
universe by law, with penalties attached for its violations, and 
endowing man with a reason, free will, and power to do as he 
choose to — I must admit that I have not as yet been able to solve 
the problem of animal suffering, either according to evolution, or 
according to a special creation, unless it is that animals have not 
the same intense sensation of pain that man has. I am rather 
inclined to the latter view, that is, that animals do not feel the 
different sensations to the same degree and intensely that man does. 
Observation and reading has convinced me that such is the case. 

When I was on the farm, yet, I noticed that little pigs, were 
they ever so gently picked up, would squeal as thougi- they were 
subjected to indiscribable torture. Or cattle would stomp around 
or stand still in the intensest cold without a shiver, where a human 
being would have shivered so that the teeth would have chattered. 
Here is what others have to say. 

"We certainly cannot judge by the cries that animals make 
when they seem to be hurt. A hare will scream piteously from 
fear if she is in danger and cannot run, but she will utter no 
sound under what seems to be the cruelest suffering, and it is the 
same with frogs. The convulsive struggles that animals make 
[Like the pigs, which squeal when picked up ever so gently,] can- 
not be regarded as any criterion of the pain they are suffering, 
nor does the mere existence of nerves -appear to be altogether 
reliable. The sting of the wasp is to the human beings one of the 
keenest sensations. But a badger, which is an animal toU-rably 
well endowed with nerves, will dig out a nest of wasps and eat as 
many of them as he can catch, quite indifferent to their stings. 



508 

Frogs and the toads will also swallow wasps whenever they can get 
the chance" (110:130). 

"The brain action of such [cold-blooded] animals is sluggish 
except in the direction of supplying their physical needs; the lower 
in the scale of organization the less activity in the brain or nerv- 
ous tissue. Hence the insensibility to pain and the lack of nerv- 
ous excitability observed in cold-blooded animals" (180:6). 

"We put great stress on Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace's argument 
that the lower animals do not know pain as we do" (181:174). 

"Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace asserts that the seeming tragedies 
of animal nature, such as the killing of birds by beasts of prey, 
are not at all so awful as they appear in our imagination. We 
see with painful vividness the outward fact, but we do not see the 
merciful anodyne furnished by nature" (161:May 8, 1900). 

"The truth is that th6 universal law of which we speak, that 
merciful provision of nature which nerves alike the brave man and 
the coward, stejjs into his defence, his objective senses are benumbed, 
and he submits to the inevitable change without fear and without 
pain. The testimony of Dr. Livingston is to the same effect. He 
was once seized by a lion when hunting in the jungles of Africa, 
and carried some distance, his body between the lion's jaws. 
When death seemed inevitable, he testifies that all fear left him, 
and a delicious langour stole over his senses. The grasp of the 
lion's jaws caused no pain, and he felt fully resigned to his fate. 
A fortunate shot from the gun of one of his companions released 
him, and he was rescued" (22:135). 

After reading the foregoing does it not seem possible that we 
may deduce the fact that the animal world is not so "red in tooth 
and claw," after all, as evolutionists and infidels would have us be- 
lieve it is? If, when death is inevitable, a "delicious languor" 
steals over a man then may not the same kind of feeling come 
over animals when they are in the jaws of death of beasts of prey? 
If the following is true as regards man, may not the same law 
govern the animal world? 

"It may be that the objective and subjective faculties act at 
such times in perfect synchronism; but certain it is that every evi- 
dence of subjective activity is present, even the phenomena of 
anesthesia. This is shown by the fact that at such times the body 
feels no pain, no matter how severe the injury. The universal tes- 



509 

timony of soldiers who have been in battle is to the effect that the 
time when fear is experienced is just before the action commences. 
When the first gun is fired, all fear vanishes, and the soldier often 
performs feats of the most desperate valor and evinces the most 
reckless courage. If wounded, he feels nothing until the battle is 
over and all excitement is gone. It is a merciful provision of 
nature that the nearer we approach death, the less we fear it" 
(22,134). 

If man then in the midst of battle or struggle is wounded and 
feels no pain until the excitement is over may not then the ani- 
mals in a life and death struggle likewise feel no pain, and if the 
stronger vanquishes the weaker as, for instance, the fox the rabbit, 
would it not be possible that the rabbit felt no pain at all from 
the moment the struggle began which ended with its death, even 
though its blood was shed? Now all that is highly probable, and 
if it is, can it be said, then, that the Creator deliberately preferred 
making organisms that they may suffer instead of making them 
numb so they could have no sensation at all, either painful or 
pleasurable? 

Would you want a numb or sensationless existence? If you 
did, then you would be like a plant or a tree, and would you want 
such an existence? It would be equal to an unconscious existence. 
Is that the kind of an existence you would like? If you do, and 
you do not believe in a future life, why, then, do you call for the 
doctor when you are stricken with a disease that would prove fatal 
if left to itself? I know of unbelievers who like to harp on the 
"red with tooth and claw" existence of all beings, human and ani- 
mal, on this plane of existence, and who besides are having a hard 
struggle for existence, yet when, they became ill sent for the doctor 
poste haste. Why are they not more consistent then with them- 
selves, if they believe what they profess, and try to reach the 
unconscious state when they have an opportunity to do so? 

But to sum up, is not the existence of alternate pleasures and 
pains a better one than an unconscious existence, even though the 
existence be in a world of a "vale of tears," as theology falsely 
characterizes it? a. f. y. 

Supposing now that we grant that the world is "red with tooth 
and claw," and that animals are capable of experiencing as intense 
sensations of pain and pleasure as man does, could evolution 



510 

account for it without involving itself in difficulties? We are told 
to believe that "Evolution can end only in the establishment of 
the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness" (127:530). 

But is that the way to establish perfection and happiness by 
developing the organless organism^ moneron, which undoubtedly 
had an unconscious or sensationless existence, into more complex 
organisms that became subject to a "red with tooth and claw" 
existence? Both hypotheses, for the origin of organisms that are 
capable of experincing sensations of pleasures and of pains, present 
difficulties, but as thes upposedly unanswerable "hapless dilemma 
[Of human evil and misery in the world] to which no answer can 
ever be suggested" (182:327), I believe I have suggested the right 
answer, — which I have already stated a number of times in this 
book, — I prefer the special creation theory, and assuming that God 
did not design, decree, send or will animal suffering, if we once 
only found the solution for it, as I believe I have found the solu- 
tion for the existence of evil, misery and suffering in man without 
Grod willing, sending, or decreeing them, or that they are the work 
of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient [Who knows what sins 
one was ashamed to confess in the confessional] , envioiis, wily, 
malicious, diabolical, horned, and cloven-footed devil who tempted 
Lucifer to commit the first sin that was ever committed. 

Can evolution account for the following, and say that that is 
the way to establish the greatest perfection and the inost complete 
happiness? 

"To assume as evolutionists do, that man has actually descended 
from animals having such wonderful instinct as the dog, is to re- 
pudiate every true and consistent idea of development, and reverses 
the whole theory of evolution. Instead of evolving the congenital 
intelligence or instinct of the dog, and developing it to a higher 
grade of intuitive knowledge, as natural selection professes to ac- 
complish, it has finally and utterly annihilated it in the infant, 
leaving not even a rudimentary vestige of such instinct remaining. 
No one can deny that the instinct of the lower animal is useful, 
and would have been of service in any and every condition of life. 
Then why should sxirvival of the fittest(!) completely destroy it in 
developing man from the dog? Suppose the infant born now had all 
the instinctive intelligence and physical strength at birth of the 
dog added to its unlimited capacity for being taught, would not 



511 

such development be useful to man? [How about that, evolution?] 
No one can donbt it for a single moment. Then how could natural 
selection destroy such valuable instinct and such important physi- 
cal strength in the young, as illustrated in the infant, except by 
reversing the very signification of evolution and survival of the 
fittest" (167:428)? 

Is that not a difficulty for evolutionists? 

It will not do to say that in order to develop and strengthen 
the parental and filial love, the child must be made as helpless and 
as long so as possible, for in that case it may be asked, How did 
"blind chance" or unconscious causes come to know that such a 
process was necessary to develop and strengthen parental and filial 
love? 

According to the following, is it not beginning to dawn on 
your mind that the theory that man descended from some lower 
animal is pretty thoroughly annihilated? 

"As the condition of the infant is in every essential respect 
the exact opposite of that of all lower animals at birth, showing a 
deterioration in every physical and mental aspect of its being it 
amounts to a simple and clearly defined demonstration that the 
infant never descended from the dog or any other lower animal. 
Were there no other argument against the theory of man's descent 
from lower forms of being, .this alone would annihilate it" (167:428). 

And I suppose he is about right, is he not? But we have 
seen other theories of evolutionists annihilated, so that in connection 
with the last theory just annihilated it ought to be potent to any 
reasonable and unprejudiced mind that man was man from the 
beginning of creation and that he is 7iot a descendant from some 
lower being. Is that not so? 

And if any hypothesis is loorthless it is that of evolution rather 
than that of special creation. And if any are "silly people" they 
are those who accept the Darwinian theory rather those who reject 
it? Is that not so? a. f. y. The kind of evolution that I believe 
in is the following: 

"A girl named plain 'Mary' at her birth dropped the 'r' when 
she grew xip and became Miss May. As she began to shine in a 
social way she changed [Through natural selection^ the 'y' to 'e' 
and signed her letters Mae. About a year ago she was married, 



512 

and now she has dropped the 'e,' and it's just plain 'Ma.' That's 
evolution."— Rogersville (Tenn.) Review. 

Yes, and that is about all there is to evolution, and no one 
can say that it is old time prejudices that led me to reject it. 

"In the field of science, undoubtedly, evolution has won the 
day. Nevertheless, in religious circles, old time prejudices and slow 
conservatism, clinging to its creeds, [To what creeds, or even an 
infallible Bible, do I cling, but reason, common sense, and intel- 
lect?] as the hermit crab clings to the cast off shell of oyster or 
clam, still resist it. The great body of the Christian laity, looks 
askance on it. * * * I think it is safe to say today, [In 1902,] 
that evolution has come to stay. It is too late to turn it out of 
the mansion of Modern thought" (183:118). 

If evolution has come to stay then likewise Catholicism; Chris- 
tian Science; Dowieism; a personal devil who tempted Lucifer to 
commit the first sin ever committed; Agnosticism, with its Sunday 
school in which the non-existence of God is taught; Monism, with 
its denial of God, free will, and soul of man, and a Bible that is 
contradictory, blasphemes God and degrades woman, have come to 
stay. No doubt time will tell which have come to stay. And if 
they all stay, then that proves to a certainty that every theory or 
belief, no matter how absurd it may be, can gain and hold ad- 
herents if only zealously advocated and the masses will let a few 
do the thinking for them, rejecting their reason, common sense, and 
understanding — God-given faculties which were given us to be used 
and not to reject, dethrone, or throw under the feet of faith. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Evolution and Special Creation — Concluded. 

No doubt to any unprejudiced and rational mind the theory of 
evolution has been proven untenable in those links of its chain 
that have been attacked, and if those links were broken — which I 
believe is patent to the reader that they have been broken— then, 
the theory or chain has become worthless and may be cast on the 
pile of wornout and useless rubbish. Having gotten the chain of 
evolution there we will take a few parting looks at it and see what 
are some of its loose ends. 

"Professor Lewis Agassiz, probably the ablest naturalist then 
living [at the time of the publication of "The Origin of Species," 
the book which says that the unhatched chicken acquired the in- 
stinct of breaking its way out of the egg-shell "by practice at a 
more advanced age,"] in his criticism of the book declared: 'The 
arguments presented by Darwin, in favor of a universal deriviation 
from one primary form of all the peculiarities existing now among 
living beings, have not made the slightest impression on my mind. 
Until the facts of nature shown to have been mistaken by those 
who have collected them, and that they have a diflPerent meaning 
from that now generally assigned to them, I shall therefore consider 
the transmutation theory as a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, 
unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency" 
(169:65, 65). 

You may see then that I am not the only silly person who 
rejects the Darwinian theory. 

"The gap in intellect between the highest apes and the lowest 
man is a considerable one, which no existing ape seems likely ever 
to cross. [By spontaneous generation, natural selection, or blind 
chance."] However the anthropoid apes gained their degree of 
mental ability, [Like they gained their beards with which to 
"charm" the opposite sex,] it does not appear to be on the increase. 
They are in a state of mental stagnation and may have remained 
so for millions of years" (172:114:, 115). And yet they progressed 



514 

so at one time, that they could perceive in their mental imagina- 
tion that a beard, which did not as yet exist, if selected^ would be 
an ornament that would charm the opposite sex. 

"Great Grod!" what absurdities and difficulties are there not to 
be found in evolution, eh? 

"Darwin was the first to point out that the 'struggle for life' 
is the unconscious regulator which controls the reciprocal action of 
heredity and adapation in the gradual transformation of species; 
it is the great 'selective divinity' which, by a purely 'natural choice,' 
without preconceived design, creates new forms, [As the male ape 
.through natural choice without preconceived design of charming 
the opposite sex, created his beard for an ornament with which to 
■.charm the female ape, or the ox selected horns, and the animal of 
tourden, long ears, in order to apapt themselves for eating grass, in 
Iheir "struggle for life," — all of which may be called "new forms."] 
just as selective man [And yet he has no free will (60:263). How 
then can he selectT\ creates new types by an 'artifical choice' [I 
suppose artificial here means mechanical .^ if man has no free will!] 
with a definite design" (60:263). 

What a lot of difficulties are there not to be found in that 
little extract of evolution lore, eh? Natural choice.^ without pre- 
conceived design, creates new forms just as man creates new types 
by an artificial choice with a definite design. That is a sample of 
the "highest intellectual progress" of unbelief in a Creator who 
created with a preconceived design. Label such an absurdity, 
science., and it takes with those who like to be regarded as modern 
thinkers., just as the absurdities of Christian Science, when labeled 
Christian, takes with those who like to be regarded as thinkers, 
when the "intellect is a dethroned king" with them. 

"Since impartial study of the evolution of the world teaches us 
[I must ask to be excepted] that there is no definite aim and no 
special purpose to be traced in it, there seems to be no alternative 
but to leave everything to 'blind chance'" (60:273). 

As well might a person say, who saw a fine, large building, 
whose granite came from Vermont, whose lumber came from Wis- 
consin, whose cement came from Kansas, whose glass came from 
Indiana, etc., that there was no architect who had any definite aim 
or special purpose in building it, that the building is the result of 
hlind chayice as to say that the world presents no definite aim, no 



515 

special purpose and is the result of hlind chance. I do not know 
what a mind ought to be labeled or branded that could believe in 
such a flagrant absurdity, but it does seem to me such a mind 
might give the probate judge something to do to earn his salary. 
What do you say? 

"The power of walking on a lower limb and grasping an upper 
one once attained, a succeeding step in evolution quickly appeared 
[Yet for thousands of years the girl babies' ancestors tried to make 
the feet smaller, but notwithstanding this, "artificial choice" with a 
definite design., has not succeeded in preventing the Chinese girl 
babies from being bom with normal feet the same as though their 
ancestors had never bound the feet of any] and one of prime im- 
portance to our inquiry. The animal had ceased to be in a full 
sense a quadruped, while not yet a biped, and a variation in the 
length of its limbs was almost sure to take place" (172:46, 47). 
[Like the variation in the Chinese baby girl's feet was almost sure 
to take place when its ancestors for thousands of years bound their 
feet.] 

But it has not varied the Chinese girl's feet in thousands of 
years, and we may, with a positive certainty, assert that the argu- 
ment that our remote ancestors, in walking on a lower limb and 
grasping an upper one was a step in evolution which quickly ap- 
peared in changing the animal from a quadruped to almost a biped, 
is absolutely without a particle of truth in it, and is simply so much 
"verbiage" for those to admire who like to be known as belonging 
to the school of modern thought! Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"Formerly, the remarkable internal similarity of structure in 
organisms [Which are created after the pattern of a general plan] 
had been a source of wonder, incapable of explanation. Now, how- 
ever, we can understand the causes of these facts, and can prove 
that this wonderful uniformity is simply the necessary consequence 
of Heredity [Like the Chinese girl baby with its natural size feet 
when born, is the consequence of Heredity, because its ancestors 
for thousands of years bound their feet so that they remained small, 
abnormal] from common ancestral forms, and that the striking dis- 
similarity of the external form is the necessary consequence of 
Adaptation to the outward conditions of existence" (80.109, Vol. 1). 
[Like the horns on the buffalo and the plain ears on the horse are 
external forms as the necessary consequence of Adaptation to the 



516 

outward conditions of a grass-eating existence on the American Con- 
tinent before the advent of civilized man.] 

Do you see how untenable are the theories of evolution? We 
know that outward conditions of existence had nothing to do 
whatever with the striking dissimilarity of the external forms of 
the grass eating buffalo and the horse. They both had the same 
outward conditions of existence in the wilds of the American con- 
tinent did they not? Then why is there that striking dissimilarity 
of external forms, if it is only the necessary consequences of 
adaption'^ Let evolutionists answer that if they can. 

And now as to the remarhable internal similarity of structure 
in organisms. If the Creator had adopted a striking internal dis- 
similarity of structure for each different species then evolutionists 
would, probably, have argued that that was a point against a Creator, 
for it would be whimsical to make such a variety of internal struc- 
tures when one general plan would answer the purpose as well. 
But now that He adapated a similarity of structure, after a general 
plan, for the internal organisms of different species, evolutionists 
at once conclude [Wrongly, as the man did who thought a brick 
veneer house, in course of construction, was going to be a frame 
house,] that that is the necessary consequences of heredity from 
common ancestral forms. How easily the evolutionists can mistake 
wrong analogies for facts. Comparative anatomy is no argument 
then in favor of the deriviation theory as against that of a special 
creation, after a general plan, is it? a. f. y. Geology is also a 
factor against the deriviation theory, and is in favor of a specal cre- 
ation. Here it is: 

"At the earliest appearance of every species in the history of 
the earth's crust, the remains are found not only as highly organ- 
ized and as perfectly differentiated as they ever afterward occur, 
but in most cases they are more completely developed and of larger 
and more powerful organization than they are ever found to be in 
subsequent geologic strata, so that degeneration is the rule rather 
than transmutation to higher organisms. How clearly, then, does 
the fact that all species at their genesis on earth are at their best 
go to show their origin by direct creation" (167:493)! 

Mr. Max Miller, who was a distinguished philologist, has this 
to say about the transition of a highly developed animal into a 
human being: 



517 

"TVhen Darwin maintains the transition from some highly 
developed animal into a human being, I say, stop! Here the 
student of language has something to say, and I say that language 
is something that even its most rudimentary form puts an impassi- 
ble barrier between beast and man" (118:656, Nov. 3, 1900). 

It seems that there are others "silly" enough not to believe in 
the Darwinian theory, when a world renowned philosopher like Mr. 
Muller was, did not believe in it. 

Here is something that meets all the requirements of modern 
science : 

"The definition of a germ as 'matter potentially alive [who or 
what power made it alive?] and having within itself the tendency 
to assume a definite form,' ajDpears to meet all the requirements of 
modern science" (184:290). 

How is it then that the matter which had "within itself the 
tendency to assume a definite form," formed itself into planets of 
such various sizes, ranging from the moon with its diameter of 2,160 
miles, to the sun with its diameter of 852,584 miles? Was that all 
the result of the mechanical causes? Did anyone ever see a nail 
machine turn out, without the intervention of an intelligent being, 
nails between which there was as much difference in sizes, in pro- 
portion, as there is between the moon and the sun? Yet science 
says that "spectral analysis has taught [and I do not question it] 
lis that the same matter which enters into the composition of all 
bodies on earth, including its living inhabitants, builds up the rest 
of the planets, the sun, and the most distant stars" (60:3)., 

What then causes this matter, which has in itself the tendency 
to assume a definite form, to differentiate itself into a biting flea 
at one extreme, and into the sun, with a diameter of 852,584 miles, 
at the other extreme? Will any rational being dare say that it is 
the result of "blind chance," or is due to unconscious non-pur- 
posive causes? As well might a person say, who saw a smoke- 
stack, hundreds of feet high; a car barn two stories high, and an 
office building ten stories high, all constructed of brick, which is 
of the same matter which entered into the composition of those 
three structures, that the brick were potentially alive and had within 
themselves the tendency to assume a definite form and formed them- 
selves into a smoke-stack, a car bam, and an office building without 
any intelligent mind to design and cause the bricks, through i)ower 



I 



518 

directed by mind, to differentiate themselves thus, as to say that a 
germ as matter potentially alive and having within itself the ten- 
dency to assume a definite form will form itself into the various 
living beings, which we behold, without an intelligent mind — Grod, 
to cause them to thus differentiate, and that that "appears to meet 
all the requirements of modern science." 

This cry of "modem science^ when thoroughly analyzed, turns 
out to be modern nonsense, does it not? a, f. y. 

Here is some more to the same point by another evolutionist. 

"The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter 
and ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force, but they 
are endowed [By whom or what?] with sensation and will ("though, 
naturally, of the lowest grade"); they experience an inclination for 
condensation [Therefore they condense themselves into biting fleas 
and burning suns, through "blind chance" and unconscious non- 
purposive causes, mechanically. Which would be like a man pour- 
ing corn into a corn mill which had two spouts, one spout out of 
which came meal with which to make "Johnny cakes," and out of 
the other came a liquid, which some use as "eye openers," (but 
which is really a brain befogger, an eye closer,) because the corn 
being endowed with will experienced "an inclination for condensa- 
sation" in two different directions] a dislike of strain; they strive 
after the one and struggle against the other. * * * Ether has 
probably no chemical quality, and is not composed of atoms. * * * 
The best idea of it can be formed by comparison with an extremely 
attenuated, elastic, and light jelly. * * * Ether is boundless and 
immeasurable, like the space it occupies. It is in eternal motion; 
and this specific movement of ether * * * j^ reciprocal action 
with mass-movement ("or gravitation"), is the ultimate cause of all 
phenomena" (60:220, 227, 228). 

And this jelly through "blind chance" has caused all the 
phenomena which we behold. Great, indeed, is the "verbiage" of 
modern science, but it is not attractive enough for me to admire, 
unless it is to amuse me in seeing how evolutionists of "great 
knowledge and abilities," who probably had some difficulties with 
ecclesiastics, like to bite off their noses to spite their faces if 
thereby they can vent their spleen against any. 

I was told once that a man who had been offended by royalty, 
for some cause or other, had no way in getting even, so he thought 



419 

he would become an evolutionist and fabricate a theory showing that 
man descended from some lower animal, thus showing that royalty 
need not feel so exclusive on account of supposing they had only 
"blue blood" in them, when in reality they had animal blood in 
them. Whether that is true or not I do not know, but to judge 
from their writings one would be led to believe that that is true. 

That modern science knows no more about the why and whence 
of the power back of all phenomena than men did in ages past 
may be seen from the following: 

"We grant at once that the innermost character of nature is 
just as little understood by us as it was by Anasimander and 
Empedocles twenty-four hundred years ago, by Spinoza and Newton 
two hundred years ago, and by Kent and Grcethe one hundred years 
ago. We must even grant that this essence of substance becomes 
more mysterious and enigmatic the deeper we penetrate into the 
knowledge of its attributes, matter and energy, and the more 
thoroughly we study its countless phenomenal forms and their 
evolution. [Put a God back of it and it will then not be so 
"mysterious and enigmatic."] We do not know the 'thing in itself 
that lies behind these knowable phenomena. [Well, I believe I do. 
It is a conscious, intelligent, and omnipotent Being, whom the 
"superstitious" call God, and who governs and creates all things 
according to orderly laws.] But why trouble about this enigmatic 
'thing in itself when we have no means of investigating it, [Con- 
sistency requires that one practice what one preaches.] when we 
do not even clearly know whether it exists or not" (60:380)? 

It was reading of that kind that eventually forced me to believe 
that there is a God. Here is some more that would effect the 
same result. 

"Let us * * * first answer this question: 'Granting the 
correctness of the fundamental laws of Biogeny, how would the 
original one-celled organism which founded the first cell state, and 
thus became the ancestor of the higher, many celled animals, — 
how must that organism have acted at the beginning of. organic 
life on the earth, or at the beginning of creation, as it is usually 
expressed?' The answer is very simple. It must have acted just 
as a man who founds a state or a colony for a given purpose" 
(80:150, 151). 

How does a man act who founds a state or a colony for a 



520 

given purpose? Does he act as an unconscious, purposeless, and 
blind -chance person? If not, then is not the following theory 
shattered, and a conscious, purposive, and intelligent Creator to be 
crowned on the ruins? 

"Mechanism * * * alone can give us a true explanation of 
natural phenomena, for it traces them to their real efficient causes, 
to blind and unconscious agencies, * * * since impartial study 
of the evolution of the world teaches us that there is no definite 
aim [Like the man "who founds a state or colony for a given pur- 
pose" has "no definite aim and no special purpose," it being simply 
a "poetic fancy" for pastime,] and no special purpose to be traced 
in it," therefore "there seems to be no alternative but to leave 
everything to "blind chance" (60:259, 273). [Like the man does 
who spends his money in founding a colonj.] 

No wonder it requires the "highest intellectual progress" to 
believe in modern science that would rule Grod out of the universe, 
if that is the kind of "verbiage" one must believe. Is that not so? 
a. f. y. 

"In the definite, limited sense in which I maintain spontaneous 
generation and assume it as a necessary hypothesis in explanation 
of the first beginning of life uj)on the earth, it merely implies the 
origin of Monera from inorganic carbon compounds * * * The 
oldest Monera originated in the sea by spontaneous generation. 
* * * This assumption is required by the demand of the human 
understanding for causality. For when, on the one hand, we reflect 
that the whole inorganic history of the earth proceeds in accord- 
ance with mechanical laws [Who enacted these mecha/aical lawsl'\ 
and without any intervention by creative power, ["Blind chance" 
is a creator that better satisfies the "highest intellectual progress," 
than would the Creator of the superstitious."] and when, on the 
other hand, we consider that the entire organic history of the 
world is also determined by similar mechanical laws; when we see 
that no sui^ernatural interferences by a creative power is needed 
for the production of the various organisms, [Mechanical laws, out 
of the same matter i)roducing a buffalo with horns, and a horse 
with plain ears, in order to adapt themselves to eat grass on the 
wilds of the American continent. But then hlind chance is liable 
to perform all kinds of whimsical things under "appropriate con- 
ditions."] then it is certainly quite inconsistent to assume such 



521 

supernatural creative interferences for the first production of life 
upon our globe. [Which was once a molten inass, the heat of 
which would have destroyed any life germs.] At all events we, as 
investigations of nature, are bound at least to attempt a natural 
explanation. * * * He, however, who does not assume a si^on- 
taneous generation [That is, from nothing, something comes, by the 
intervention of nothing,] of Monera, * * * to explain the first 
origin of life upon our earth, has no other resource but to believe 
in a supernatural miracle; [Spontaneous generation being only a 
supernatural Mind chance, which made flesh, instead of stone, ani- 
mate,] and this, in fact, is the questionable standpoint still taken 
by many so-called 'exact naturalist' who thus renounce their own 
reason" (80:30-32, Vol. 2). 

As I am not a so-called exact naturalist^ but only a Kansas 
"hayseed" of "presumptuovis ignorance," I have probably no reason 
to renounce for preferring to believe in one "supernatural miracle" 
for the first origin of life upon our earth, rather than in many 
Mind chance infractions of the law that like begets like, and in 
"spontaneous generation" which is a something coming from noth- 
ing through the intervention of nothing. But is spontaneous gen- 
eration a fact, that is, can life appear without antecedent life? I 
will let a scientist answer that question. After having made several 
attempts to generate life from non-living matter, and failing to do 
so he says: 

"Every attempt made in our day to generate life independently 
of antecedent life has utterly broken down. * * * These and 
other experiments, carried out with a severity perfectly obvious to 
the instructed scientific reader, and accompanied by a logic equally 
severe, restored the conviction that, even in these lower reaches of 
the scale of being, life does not ajjpear without the operation of 
antecedent life" (185: iii, 569). 

Another thing: if the earth was once a molten mass, so that 
life germs could not have survived the intense heat, and it is an 
" axiom of science that from nothing, nothing comes, then how could 
life be spontaneously generated upon this earth when it had suffi- 
cieiitly cooled to admit the existence of life upon it? It will not 
do to say that life germs fell on this earth from other planets, be- 
cause the law of gravitation would preclude any such a possibility. 
If, then, there was a time that no life germ existed on this earth, 



522 

and the law of gravitation would preclude its possibility of coming 
from another planet, and from nothing, nothing comes, then how 
could even the "eternal, iron laws of nature" (60:261), which evo- 
lutionists say have taken the place of God, originate life on this 
earth? 

Who are they, then, that renounce their own reason^ the ones 
who believe in a God as the Creator and cause of life upon this 
earth, or those who believe in the impossibility of nothing sponta- 
neously generating something — life, from nothing? a. f. y. 

"The vermiform appendage [Which sometimes causes appendi- 
citis that proves fatal] is not of the slightest use in our organism; 
it is the last and dangerous remnant of an organ, which was much 
larger in our vegetarian ancestors, and was of great use to them in 
digestion; as it is still in many herbivorous animals. * * * 
Other similar rudimentary organs exist in us, as in all higher ani- 
mals, in different parts of the body. They are among the most 
interesting phenomena with which Comparative Anatomy acquaints 
us; firstly, because they afford the most obvious proof of the Theory 
of Descent, and secondly, because they most forcibly refute the 
customary teleological philosophy of the schools. The Doctrine of 
Descent renders the explanation of these remarkable phenomena 
very simple" (80:110, 111, Vol. 1). 

If the vermiform appendage proves anything it proves the lit- 
eral truth of Gen. 1:29, which says: "And God said: Behold I have 
given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees 
that have in themselve seed of their own kind, to be your meat," 
does it not, if it was of great use to our vegetarian ancestors, 
which the Bible says was the diet of the first man on earth? If I 
had an infallible Bible to defend would I not in that have a strong, 
argument for the literal truth of Gen. 1:29 if the vermiform ap- 
pendage is of great use to a vegetarian diet, and was that not the 
diet of the first man we have any record of? The vermiform ap- 
pendage is not a rudimentary organ which man has inherited from 
lower animals, through descent, but is because of all living beings 
being constructed after a general plan, is that not so? a. f. y. 

I will now show you how inconsistent evolutionists are. In 
the matter of free will they deny that there is such a thing as free 
will. 

"The freedom of the will, is not an object for critical, scien- 



523 

tific inquiry at all, for it is a pure dogma, based on an illusion, 
and has no real existence [Like the mortal mind in Christian Sci- 
ence which has created the illusions of sin, sickness, and disease]. 
♦ * * From the gloomy problem of substance we have evolved 
the clear laio of substance. The monism of cosmos which we estab- 
lish thereon proclaims the absolute dominion of 'the great eternal 
iron laws' throughout the universe. It thus shatters, at the same 
time, these central dogmas of the dnalistic phylosophy — the person- 
ality of God, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the 
will" (60:16, 381). 

Here it is where he is inconsistent with what he professes- 
"We begin our review with justice. * * * Xo one can maintain 
that its condition today is in harmony with our advanced knowl- 
edge of man and the world. Not a week passes in which we do 
not read of judicial decisions over which every thoughtful man 
shakes his head [How? Mechanically, because he has no free will?] 
in despair; many of the decisions of the higher and lower courts 
are simply unintelligible" (60:6). 

Why should they be so if there is no such thing as free will? 
If a machine that was made to turn out corn meal and it turned out 
corn meal when corn was poured into it, would that be simply laiin- 
telligihle because it did not turn out whiskey, instead? If man has no 
free will then is he not an automaton — a machine, and if he is then 
how can his decisions be simply unintelligible? Will some one of 
the "highest intellectual progress" brand people please answer that? 

But now that he does believe in free will, after all, may be 
inferred from the following: 

"If the modern state gives every citizen a vote, it should also 
give him the means of developing his reason by a proper education 
in order to make a rational use of his vote for the common weal" 
(60:365). 

How can a man vote rationally if he has no free will? If 
there is no snch thing as a free will, and man "cannot act only as 
he is acted \ipon by circumstances, and cannot do a voluntary deed 
only as coerced by a motive which he has no hand in framing, 
then he cannot be justly punished as a criminal," (167:69) and 
judicial decisions of our higher and lower courts cannot appear to 
us as simply unintelligille. Is that not so? 

But then evolution, and especially atheistic evolution, must 



524 
« 
make use of "verbiage," for how could it otherwise "bumfoozle" 
those who pride themselves as belonging to the school of "modem 
thought"? ■ 

"Experimental physics has succeeded, during the last decade of 
the century, in reducing all gaseous bodies to a liquid — most of 
them, also, to a solid — condition. * * * In this way the 'invisi- 
ble substances' have become 'visible' to all, and in a certain sense 
'tangible.' * * * jf^ then, the substance of the soul were really 
gaseous, [Who says it is gaseous? Are thoughts and magnetism 
gaseous?] it should be possible to liquefy it by the application of 
a high temperature at a low pressure. "VVe could then catch the 
soul [Like we do thoughts and magnetism] as it is 'breathed out 
at the moment of death, condense it, [Like we condense thoughts, 
and magnetism] and exhibit it in a bottle as 'immortal fluid.' By 
a further lowering of temperature and increase of pressure it might 
be possible to solidify it — to produce 'soul-snow.' The experiment 
has not yet succeeded." [As it has in making thought-snow or 
magnetic fluid, bottled.] 

That is virtually an argument against the soul and its immor- 
tality. Science, that is agnostic and atheistic science, believes in 
nothing that cannot be cognized by the five senses therefore the 
existence of Grod and the soul is denied. But if nothing is to be 
accepted as existing unless it can be cognized by the senses then 
must we also deny the existence of thought in man, the existence of 
magnetism, and the vibrations of wireless telegraphy? If the soul 
does not exist continuously because the experiment has not yet 
succeeded in reducing it to an immor'tal fluid that can be bottled, 
or to soul snoiv, then has the experiment succeeded in condens- 
ing thought into a liquid that can be bottled, or condensed it into 
thought-snow? or has the experiment succeeded in catching magne- 
tism, as it passes through wood, glass, slate, etc., from one object 
to another, and condensed it into magnetic fluid or into magnetic 
snow? or have the vibrations, of wireless telegraphy, as they left 
the transmitter, been caught and condensed into a fluid that can be 
bottled and be labelled "wireless telegraph vibration fluid, caught 
as it left the transmitter and liquified by the application of a high 
temperature at a low pressure"? Has science succeeded in doing 
all that? And because it has not, does any one question that 
thought, magnetism, and wireless telegraph vibrations, — or whatever 



525 

they may be called, do not, therefore, exist any more so than that 
the soul does not exist because science has not as yet succeed in 
catching it, as it is "breathed out" at the moment of death, and 
liquefied it by the application of a high temperature at a low pres- 
sxire? 

We know that thought exists do we not, and if in the vocabu- 
lary of science there is no such word as annihilation, then what 
becomes of thought when the body is laid in the grave? Is it in 
the grave with the body? If so, why then has not science extracted 
it from the body when it makes post mortem examinations, as it 
often does, of heads of the dead persons, and liquefied it or made 
it into thought-snoiv? We also know that magnetism exists, for an 
experimenter with it says that "plates of glass, wood, slate, paste- 
board, or gutta percha, are all pervious to this wondrous force- 
One magnetic pole acts upon another through these bodies as if 
they were not present" (185:867). 

If such is the fact, then why do not these scientists, who claim 
they can condense anything that has real existence, catch the mag- 
netism as it passes from the magnetic pole through glass, wood, 
etc., and liquefy it "by the application of a high temperature at a 
low pressure," or, "by a further lowering of temperature and increase 
of pressure," solidify it and produce magnetic-snovf? The same 
may be said of wireless telegraphy. And is there no truth in wire- 
less telegraphy? Here is what a paper says of it n«w, which at 
one time was skeptical on that subject: 

"According to tests made at St. Benedict's College in Atchison, 
there is merit in the theory of wireless telegraphy. Some time ago 
the Scientific American contained an account of the methods em- 
ployed in wireless telegraphy, and Father , of St. Benedict's, 

who is of a scientific turn of mind, decided to give the system a 
test. In a room in the south end of the monastery he constructed 
a wireless apparatus and in the north end he constructed another 
one. The monastery is fully half a block long, and there are a 
number of heavy walls intervening. Therefore, when an operator 
was put at each instrument, there was astonishment at the readi- 
ness with which the instruments responded. Messages were sent 
back and forth without difficulty" (161: Mar. 3, 1903). 

If, then, wireless instruments can transmit messages why do 
not some scientists catch these messages, — as they would the soul 



526 

if it existed, — when leaving the transmitters and condense them 
into message-fluid by the application of a high temperature at a 
low pressure, or, by a further lowering of temperature and increase 
of pressure solidify them and make message-snow? Thoughts, mag- 
netism, and wireless messages can only be known when they mani- 
fest themselves, so likewise is it with God and the soul. And 
because God and the soul are beyond the ken of science does that 
prove that they do not exist any more so than that my thoughts 
do not exist, and of which no one would have known of their ex- 
istence had I not made them manifest in speech and in writing in 
this book? That is a poor argument, then, is it not, against the 
existence of God and the soul simply because they are beyond the 
immediate ken of atheistic and agnostic science? 

As we are now considering the subject of the soul and its im- 
mortality let us see what more science has to say about it. 

"The ethnological proof — that the belief in God, is an innate 
truth, common to all humanity — is an error in fact" (60:203). 

If the belief in the immortality of the soul was not an innate 
truth with our primeval progenitors, and from nothing, nothing 
comes, whence came the belief in the immortality of the soul in 
any human beings at all? Would evolution, which works only for 
the happiness and perfection of things, delude any by evolving the 
belief of immortality, if there is no such thing as immortality? 

"The best and most plausible ground for anthanatism is found 
in the hope that immortality will reunite us to the beloved friends 
who have been prematurely taken from us by some grim misfortune. 
But even this supposed good fortune proves to be an illusion on 
closer inquiry; and in any case it would be greatlj^ marred by the 
prospect of meeting the less agreeable acquaintances and the ene- 
mies who have troubled our existence here below. Even the clos- 
est family ties would involve manj' a difficulty. There are plenty 
of men who would gladly sacrifice all the glories of Paradise if it 
meant the eternal companionship of their 'better half and their 
mother-in-law" (90:208). 

What is it that we do on this plane of existence when we have 
"less agreeable acquaintances" and others whom we do not care to 
have anything to do with? We avoid them, keep out of their way, 
do we not? And is there any reason to suppose that we will not 
have, on the next plane of existence, the same latitude to move 



527 

about in as we have here, and that we cannot, therefore, avoid 
whom we will, be it "less agreeable acquaintances," a better half 
and mother -in-lav}, or any one else? Is that not a weak argument 
to bring against the belief in immortality the prospect of meeting 
the less agreeable acquaintances, and others on the next plane of 
existence whom we knew on this plane of existence? a. f. y. 

"The mystic notion that the human soul will live forever after 
death has had a polyphletic origin. It was unknown to the earliest 
speaking man. * * * With the development of reason and 
deeper reflection on life and death, sleep and dreams, mystic ideas 
of a dualistic composition [Body and soul, J of our nature were 
evolved [From what and by whom were these ideas evolved if from 
nothing, nothing comes, and there is no God to intervene?] inde- 
pendently of each other — in a number of the earlier races" (60:195). 

And so it was reason and deeper reflection that brought about 
the belief in the soul and its immortality! Probably it was the 
same process that brought about the belief in the other central 
dogmas of the dualistic philosophy — the personality of God, and 
the freedom of the will? And if these "three central dogmas of 
the dualistic philosophy" are illusions evolved by "the great eternal 
iron laws," then evolution cannot be working towards the greatest 
happiness and perfection of human beings, can it?. If to attain 
the greatest happiness and perfection it is necessary first to believe 
in three illusions — "the personality of God, the immortality of the 
soul, and the freedom of the will," then how did the "great eternal 
iron laws," which have taken God's place (60:261) in evolution 
lore, know that such a thing was necessary? Are they conscious 
and intelligent laws? Let evolutionists answer that if they can 
without involving themselves in difficulties. If it was reason and 
deeper reflection that led to the belief in the personality of God, 
the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, and it is 
"by reason only can we attain to a correct knowledge of the world 
and a solution of its great problems" (60:17), then have evolutionists, 
who deny those three dogmas, renounced their reason, and are only 
shallow thinkers — not reflecting deeply? To read their "verbiage" 
one might infer that such was the case, is that not so? a. f. y. 

Here is a sample of their "verbiage" which lends strong sus- 
picion to that inference: 

"Both theories [Kinetic and the pyknotic] agree that we have 



528 

succeeded in reducing all the different forces of nature to one com- 
mon original force [What was it that caused its differentiation into;] 
gravity and chemical action, electricity and magnetism, light and 
heat, etc , are only different manifestations, forms, or dynamodes, of 
a single primitive force. This fundamental force is generally con- 
ceived as a vibratory motion of the smallest particles of matter — a 
virbration of atoms. The atoms themselves, according to the usual 
'kinetic theory of substance,' are dead, separate particles of matter, 
which dance to and fro in empty space and act at a distance. [And 
I suppose by dancing to and fro and acting at a distance they 
formed neucli which evolved gravitation from "dead, separate par- 
ticles of matter," which attracted atoms until, through hlind chance, 
it resulted in the various sized planets ranging from the moon 
with its diameter of 2,160 miles to the sun with its diameter of 
852,584.] * * * The two fundamental forms of substances, 
[Here we have two fundamental substances. In the other it was a 
single substance,] ponderable matter and ether, are not dead 
[Here is a flat contradiction. In the other it said they are dead.^ 
and only moved by extrinsic force, but they are endowed with sen- 
sation and will * * * they experience an inclination for con- 
densation" (60:216, 220). 

What the key is to the understanding of such scientific "ver- 
biage" as evolutionists give us, I do not know. Whether it is 
making the "intellect a dethroned king" or queen, or throwing it 
under the feet, or "biting off your nose to spite your face," if 
thereby you may give offense to those who believe in the phantoms 
of a vital force, free will, and "divine omnipotence" (60:221), I 
cannot say. 

But now since the belief in the existence of the soul, after the 
so-called death of the body, is well established, some may like to 
know if the souls, the animating principle, of animals survive after 
the death and disintegration of their bodies? I will let another 
answer that. Here it is: 

"The essential constituent element of difference in the vital 
and mental entities * * * ^f j^^^ gj^j-j animals * * * is this: 
While the lower animals at birth receive their specific stores of 
knowledge suited to their environments, ("without the capacity of 
teaching or being taught, except to a very limited specific extent"), 
thus adapting them exclusively to this single state of existence, the 



529 

human being receives no knowledge at birth, — not a single idea of 
inherited intelligence, — but an unlimited blank capacity for being 
taught, having an interior organism capable of being cultivated and 
expanded to eternity! This alone constitutes a wall as broad as the 
earth and as high as the heavens between the man and the brute. 
* * * As a necessary psychological corollary and scientific out- 
growth of this sublime demarkation, lower animals cannot have the 
slightest conception of a future life, since their vital and mental 
organisms, as well as their specific stores of inherited knowledge, are 
only suited to and limited within a temporary existence" (167:470). 
Is that not a reasonable explanation and theory why animals 
are not immortal, especially so when we take the following into 
• consideration? 

"However the anthropoid apes [Our supposed ancestors, accord- 
ing to evolutionists] gained their degree of mental ability, it does 
not appear to be on the increase. They are in a state of mental 
stagnation and may have remained so for millions of years" (172: 
115). 

Does that not then prove the contention, as given above, why 
man may be immortal while animals may not be so? But now the 
evolutionists, who do not believe in the immortality of man may 
want to know, how a babe, which has not yet reached the age of 
understanding before it dies, and could, therefore, not have had any 
conception of a future life, how can such a one be immortal? Here 
is the answer to how a babe may attain immortality, even though 
it had no conception of a future life before it passed on. 

"Throughout this study in spiritual biology we have assumed 
that the subjects of the classification which we seek are adult men 
and women. That is to say, they are individuals who have ad- 
vanced so far toward complete human development that they may 
fairly be examined for our purpose. But what of the infant, the 
immature, the undeveloped, whose physical life is broken up? To 
this it may at least be replied that the marvelous possibilities which 
are seen to lie in the law of heredity may well contain all that is 
needed here. When we consider what actually is carried over from 
parent to child through the microscopic bridge of a single germ 
cell, we need not despair of heredity doing for the soul as it does 
for the body. That ethical qualities, when they exist, are trans- 
missible is a common experience. It would at least be no violation 



530 

of the analogies of Scripture and nature if the child of one who 
has achieved life eternal [Which achievement must already have 
been begun on this plane existence] should also prove to be im- 
mortal. Where, or how, or under what circumstances its develop- 
ment may take jjlace is the same question, no more and no less 
difficult, under any theory of a future life. Our theory has in its 
favor that so far as any answer at all can be given it gives it in 
terms of processes which we know to be real" (20:186, 187). 

Is that not a reasonable and possible theory for the infant's 
immortality? That such a theory, admitting that the rule works 
both ways, would undermine the doctrine of immortality for all, in 
the case of a dying infant whose parents do not believe in a future 
life, and could, therefore, not have had achieved eternal life before 
transmitting jointly, at fecundation, to the new life germ their 
qualities of disbelief in immortality, I will admit, because I do not 
believe in a sjoecial creation of each individual soul, as theology 
teaches, nor in the immortality of those who are so utterly depraved 
as to no longer have a conception of God, or of the soul of man, 
while they are on this plane of existence, hence making them fit 
only for eternal suffering, a thing which is not a fact, having 
proved it so in earlier chapters in this book. 

When the Bible says: "So the heavens and the earth were 
finished, and all the furniture of them" (Gen. 2:1), and "God 
blessed thsm, saying: [Not in words, for He spoke to the animal 
creation in the same words, (Gen. 1:22), but in the emotions, 
instincts, and passions.] "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth" 
(Gen. 1:28), does that not imply that God no longer creates directly, 
but indirectly and mediately, and in the case of man he jDlants and 
God gives the increase? So when the parents of any living being, 
at fecundation, transmit jointly a part of their vital invisible organ- 
isms — the soul, as well as the physical entities, to the germ 
which becomes a new living being, the seed of the soul and the 
body, as it were, is sown and God gives the increase just as He 
does in plants aiid animals. 

If the soul of each human being is to be a special creation, 
as theology teaches, then what did God mean when He said: "Increase 
and multiply?" Did He mean that man was to multiply his body 
only, or did He mean the whole of man? Again, supposing God 
creates each new soul directly, at what period of gestation does the 



531 

soul enter? "What is its size? Is it the adult size into which the 
physical body will develop, or is it a miniature in size and grows 
with the development of the body? The fact that the conscious- 
ness of the child unfolds with the development of the body is 
proof positive that the soul is not a special creation. Is not the 
soul, as it were, the incorporal pattern or mould into which the 
physical body develops itself, and is an offspring of the parents? 
How otherwise could there be a family resemblance in the children, 
and especially of the father? 

"Yet not a thousandth part of its corporal being at birth has 
come from the father, — nearly the entire physical entity being the 
product of the mother, through transferrence of her bioplasts and 
blood-corpuseles to its body" (33:321). 

That is a fact is it not? Then how could the child resemble 
the father if it were not through receiving from the father its 
soul cell or germ, when it receives nine hundred and ninety 
thousandths part of its physical from its mother? 

Of course, believers in special creation of souls ask, "How, 
according to the theory of heredity, [Propagation of souls by gen- 
eration.] can we explain the great difference between children of 
the same parents? How explain the creations of poet, artist, 
musicians" (25:221)? 

The first question has already been answered: it is because a 
mother cannot go through the same mental perturbations during' 
the period of gestation of each separate child. That we know is a 
fact. The answer to the second question, How explain the creations 
of poets, artists, or musicians, on the theory of propagation of the 
soul by generation, is one I will have to give according to my 
theory, and if God is not partial, and therefore did not specially 
create infidel souls with the power of prose and poetic eloquence 
and oratory to speak against Him, as some have done, then my 
theory must be correct. This is my theory, and I have read some- 
thing to the same point. It is this: for every faculty of which one 
is possessed there must be a cell that is the seat of it, and if dur- 
ing its development, during gestation, the mother experiences a 
sensation of delight and pleasure in hearing any one use language 
that seems eloquent to her, although it may not seem eloquent to 
another person who hears it oftener or who is more highly educated, 
this mental impression is conveyed to the foetus and if the cell of 



532 

language happens to be the one that at the time is developing, 
this mental perturbation of delight and pleasure will react on that 
cell giving it a stimulus that causes its greater development. The 
same is it with art. The mother, at a certain favorable time of 
gestation for the developing of the artistic cell, may see something 
that causes her great admiration. Likewise is it with music, or any 
other of the faculties which may have developed i^rodigies. That 
is why sometimes children, whose parents were apparently dull in a 
particular faculty, have distinguished themselves in that particular 
faculty and sometimes to a greater degree than children of parents 
who had that particular faculty better developed. Is that not a 
better solution as to what is the cause of poets, artists, musicians, 
and prodigies, than the theory of the theologians that Grod specially 
created their souls for the manifestation of such phenomena? 

Did God specially create the infidel poets' souls that they 
might use their eloquence against Him and all things religious? 
You will hardly dare say that He did. Well, then, have I not a 
better theory for the exx^lanation as to the how of the "creations 
of poet, artist, musician," or a prodigy of any kind, than is that of 
a special creation, especially so when we take into consideration 
that God is not partial, and when some of the great poets were 
infidels? It is not to be inferred, however, that all prodigies owe 
their marvellous genius to the source I have given here, for hered- 
ity creates a tendency in the offspring which makes it easier to 
educate this or that faculty. We have instances of that in musi- 
cians. It is said that "Mozart's father was a violinist; Beethoven 
was the son of a tenor singer, and Mendelssohn was of a musical 
family" (186:39). It is further said that, "Notwithstanding a few 
striking exceptions [according to an old schoolmaster], the natural 
dullness of children born of uneducated parents was proverbial" 
(186:36). 

Now, do not these facts prove that— 

"The incorporeal life germ [The soul] of the child is conveyed 
to the ovule by the father and mother jointly at fecundation" (167: 
63), and is not a special creation? Theology teaches that the soul 
"is in every part of the living body, because it is -the form of the 
body" (25:190), — and I do not question it, then what causes it to 
expand with the body if it is a special creation and cannot be 
propagated by generation, and it is the form of the body from 



533 

the embryo to maturity? Cannot God give the increase to the 
soul germ of the child when it is transmitted to it jointly by its 
parents as well as He gives the increase to the physical entity? 
And if He can then why may not the cell that develops into the 
soul be transmitted by its parents jointly as well as the cell that 
develops into the physical entity is jointly transmitted by its 
parents? And were the doctrine of Original Sin true, then it 
would be making God creating a soul sin sullied direct, for we 
must admit that from nothing, nothing comes, without the inter- 
vention of God, and if the parents were cleansed from original 
sin in baptism then how could they transmit that which they 
have not? Does God create direct the soul that is His enemy, 
being stained by original sin, "even from the day of our conception?" 
(52:4.) 

If at the time of fecundation — conception — the soul is already 
fully formed, then what size is it? It cannot be larger than the 
embryonic foetus, for if so it would have to extend beyond the 
limits of the womb which has not as yet begun to expand with the 
increasing growth of the embryo, and in that case how can the 
soul of the child extend beyond the limits of the womb if the 
mother's soul "is in every part of the (her) living body," and one 
soul substance is of the same kind as that of another soul 
which cannot, therefore, occupy the place of another soul without 
displacing it? Difficulties, innumerable, could be piled up against 
the doctrine of a special creation of souls. 

Dr. Dowie says: "The soul is the animal life. The soul is 
not spiritual at all, and one of the most stupid things a Christian 
can do is to argue for the "immortality of the soul." I shall 
* * * show you how right it is to argue for the immortality of 
the spirit, but, let me warn you, never argue for the immortality 
of the soul. You will plunge yourself into a sea of confusion if 
you do, and give your adversaries an essential advantage," which 
is this: "The infidel quotes Scripture at you, and flings at your 
head 'The Soul that sinneth, it shall die' * * * etc. The 
infidel asks you, when you areM arguing for the immortality of the 
Soul, 'How can a thing be immortal that can die' " (187:15, 20)? 

According to that then it is the animal life that can sin and 
that dies. But does the animal life die, if the "soul is the animal 
life" only, when it sins? Will not the animal life die whether one 



534 

sins or not? Has a babe, who dies before it reaches the age of 
consciousness, sinned because it died? The Scriptural text "The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die," is literally true in the sense in 
which it is meant, and if it is not raised to spiritual life from its 
grave of sin by the "voice of the Son of Man' 'it will in time die. 
That is what is meant by the Resurrection, — which theology has 
misinterpreted as being the re-creating, re-animating the disinte- 
grated dust on the Judgment Day at the end of the world, — the 
raising to life again the conscience that is dead in sin, and which 
I have already attempted to make plain in the chapter on the 
Resurrection. 

The text, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," is also a text 
in favor of the annihilation of the utterly depraved, and means 
that there is to be no such an endless torture in an everlasting 
hell of fire, sulphur, and brimstone, — and as a writer said, of coal 
oil, had the writers of the Bible at the time known that there was 
such a thing as coal oil, — as orthodoxy would have us believe. 

When a soul once sins it plants the germ in it that sets to 
work towards its decay, just as a disease in the body starts toward 
decay the body, and if something is not done to counteract it the 
soul will eventually die, just as the disease will finally kill the 
body, not letting it mature. If this doctrine of the special crea- 
tions of souls were once put aside it might be easier for orthodoxy 
to undermine Mormonism if the following is true: 

"How would the * * * lady like to hear the Mormon 
elders teaching her girls that there are myriads of little unem- 
bodied spirits, the spiritual offspring of God, hovering all about 
us waiting to be clothed with bodies, so that they may take their 
place in the procession for human development, and that until the 
young women of the world will lay aside their selfishness and 'false 
pride,' and all become 'mothers in Israel,' even if a dozen of them 
have to 'marry' the same man in order to do so, millions of these 
unfortunate, miniature spirits will have to remain without the 
bodies which are necessary to their development and exaltation? 
Possibly she would say that no s^ne woman could be made to 
believe such stuff. This is very easy to say; but as a matter of 
fact thousands of women are made to believe it none the less. 
How such ideas are made to appeal to the motherhood instinct in 
women can only be understood when considered in the light of 



535 

the fact that thousands of women are today sacrificing themselves 
— their all — because of their belief in the divinity of such teach- 
ings. The history of Mormonism has again and again proved, and 
is proving today, [May. 1900] that women who cannot be moved 
to yield to the lusts of beastly men [Such as patriarchs of the Old 
Testament were who had "pot slinger," "kitchen mechanic," and 
"biscuit shooter," ivives, of "inferior degree," "servile extraction," 
and "inferior condition," besides the queenly wife as wives.] by 
appeals to their personal interests, who would even die in the 
defense of their honor, can be influenced to yield to appeals in 
behalf of the alleged baby spirits which they are made to think 
are hovering around them, praying, longing, even to the point of 
despair, while waiting for mothers to give them bodies and homes 
in which to rest from their weary wanderings. * * * When 
such appeals are made to the young maidens during the imagina- 
tive and critical periods of their lives, the influence is too often 
irresistible. The mothers of this fair land, who are given to de- 
spising the unfortunate, polygamous women of Utah, should be on 
their guard lest their own daughters be caught in the same toils" 
(183:200, 201). 

Would not my theory, that the soul is not a special creation, 
but is the development of the ovule to which the father and mother 
jointly conveyed the incorporeal life germ, undermine such Mor- 
mon teachings as just given here? a. f. y. 

"There is now no need for long voyages and costly words to 
appreciate the beauties of this world. A man needs only to keep 
his eyes open and his mind diciplined. Surrounding nature offers 
us everywhere a marvelous wealth of lovely and interesting objects 
of all kinds. [Which are the result of dead atoms dancing to and 
fro, and acting at a diistan.ce, through "blind chance."] In every 
bit of moss and blade of grass, in every beetle and butterfly, we 
find, when we examine it carefully, beauties which are usually over- 
looked. Above all when we examine them with a powerful glass 
or, better still, with a good microscope, we find everywhere in 
nature a new world of inexhaustible charms. [The result of un- 
conscious causes acting "without preconceived design," creating new 
forms that charm, just as man creates new forms "by an artificial 
choice with a definite design."] But the nineteenth century has 
not only opened our eyes to the aesthetic enjoyment of the micro- 



536 

scopic world; it has shown us the beauties of the greater objects 
in nature. Even at its commencement it was the fashion to regard 
mountains as magnificent but forbidding, and the sea as sublime 
but dreaded. At its close the majority of educated people — especially 
they who dwell in great cities — are delighted to enjoy the glories 
of the Alps and the crystal splendor of the glacier world for a 
fortnight every year, or to drink in the majesty of the ocean and 
the lovely scenery of its coasts. [With the eyes, those vjonderfal 
instruments whose "structure is so remarkably purposive that they 
might well lead to the erroneous assumption of a 'creation on a 
preconceived design,' " instead of by oion-purposive causes vnthout 
'preconceived design through "blind chance."] All these sources of 
the keenest enjoyment of nature have only recently been revealed 
to us in all their splendor, and the remarkable progress we have 
made in facility and rapidity of conveyance has given even the less 
wealthy an opportunity of approaching them" (60:341). 

According to that the world is beautiful even to an evolu- 
tionist who sees no design in it, it simply being the result of 
"blind chance," yet those who profess to believe in a Creator who 
designed the world would have us believe that it is a "huge 
immortification" to behold all this beauty and enjoy it, and that 
God is more pleased with us if we deny our senses these beauties 
which delight. That He is better pleased if we go to the desert, 
live in a cave, eat roots and herbs, sleep on leaves, abusing and 
ill-treating the body, which will be "glorified" and which will take 
precedence over the soul on Resurrection day, than if we remain 
in the world, and with thanks, enjoy its beauties and pleasures, 
and try to make one another as happy as possible. It is such 
fanaticism of false religions that brings disrepute on God and His 
creation, and gives unbelievers joretext for ridiculing true religion, 
the religion of humanity, of Jesus. 

"Spiritual books tell us that if we indulge, for instance, our 
sense of smell in some fragrance, it is a huge immortification." 
ai:195). 

I suppose it then also applies to the other senses, if it is a 
huge immortification to indulge the sense of smell in some fra- 
grance. In that case I suppose the fanatical "Saint," in the desert, 
surrounds oneself with dead things and jimson weeds, so that he 
or she may not commit the "huge immortification" of indulging 



537 

the sense of smell in some fragrance. Or if fruit is found the 
leaves are eaten, the fruit probably sold and for the money received 
therefrom it is paid to those, who, unlike the Christian Scientists, 
who are "unlike the Lord of course, who had not whereon to lay 
His head," that they may say Masses, at one dollar for a low Mass 
and five dollars for a high Mass, for them so as to be selfishly 
sure of their salvation even if the rest of the world does go to the 
devil who tempted Lucifer. 

Here God created the beautiful world, the beautiful women 
and the brave men, to love, the beautiful and fragrant flowers, the 
lucious fruits, and yet to enjoy them all is a '"huge immortifica- 
tion." I thought God did not tempt us? Is that not equal to a 
temptation to put all those beautiful things, which I have just 
mentioned, before us and if we enjoy them it is a "huge immorti- 
fication?" If it is a "huge immortification" to enjoy, with thanks- 
giving, the things of this world, may it not also be a "huge im- 
mortification" to enjoy ourselves and be hajjpy in heaven, if God 
is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we should get to 
heaven? 

Who are more an honor to God, and ought to be called God's 
children, those who respect themselves and act as noble persons 
because they are created in the image and likeness of God — which 
image and likeness ought to have some resemblance to the original 
— and who remain in the world, enjoy its lawful beauties and 
pleasures, strive to help others along and extend to those in need 
a helping hand, or those who flee to the desert or the cloister, 
shutting themselves out from the world, regard themselves as 
"miserable worms of the dust" — a nice image and likeness of some- 
body — say the Rosary over and over, perpetually adore the En- 
charistic God, — which is only a piece of baked dough — go about 
with long faces, fearing that if they smiled God would be displeased 
with it, mortifying their bodies so that they become weakened and 
die a premature death, and deny themselves the beauties and law- 
ful pleasures of this life, because it would be a "huge immortfica- 
tion" to indulge them? a. f. y. 

Can atheism and infidelity see anything wrong in that view 
that I have of the Creator, the beautiful world and the enjoying its 
lawful beauties and pleasures, and could they not have been de- 
signed for that purpose by an all-wise Creator? Does any sane 



538 

mind believe that all the beauties and pleasures of this world were 
not designed for a purpose by God, but that they are simply the 
result of "blind chance"? And as I have already proved that Grod 
does not will, send or decree anyone any misfortune and suffering, 
is it not easy to deduce the fact that there is an intelligent, living 
and conscious power — God behind all phenomena? And is special 
creation, as I have explained it, then, a "worthless" theory, or a 
doctrine of "superlative nonsense" (163:321, Vol. 2)? 

In the next chapter I will present some argiiments for and against 
the existence of God, and if I succeed in convincing the reader 
that there is a God then the reader ought to make an effort to 
help check the wave of infidelity and agnosticism which is beginning 
to make itself felt and which has started a Sunday school in which 
the non-existence of God is taught. 

To me it seems that it is high time that creedal lines, sectarian 
walls, and denominational fences be put away, that all believers 
may be one in combatting anything that tends to undermine the 
conscience and the morals of the family, the society, and the nation. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



ARGUMENTS PRO AND CON — THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

In this chapter I will present some arguments for and against 
the existence of God. 

"Reason * * * can prove by its own light the existence of 
God" (129:5). 

It was reason and deep reflection that forced me into the 
understanding that all the phenomena which we behold in the uni- 
verse must have had a mind and power back of it, in order to pro- 
duce it, that was conscious and living and which we call God. 
When one understands a thing faith is no longer needed to sup- 
port any belief or conviction, and that is why I believe in the 
existence of God even though I have no longer an infallible 
authority or a Bible to rely upon to prove His existence. 

"All men have a natural aptitude, instinct, for believing in 
Him — that will seem to reason a strong added presumption of His 
actual existence. * * * Now pure reason takes note of the 
obvious facts of this material universe. Its vastness astonishes and 
bewilders. Its immensity of resistless forces amazes. Its innumera- 
ble forms of matter, its wonderful variety of organisms, the intricate 
delicacy of the millions of organic structures, the exquisite work- 
manship displayed in organs of creatures so minute that only the 
most powerful microscope can reveal them to the eye of the man, 
all these combine to overwhelm us in amazement. Then the endow- 
ment of inorganic matter with its affinities, its cohesions, its gravi- 
tations, its crystallizations, its electric forces, its adapations for 
transmutation [That is the only kind of transmutation theory that 
I believe in.] into new and wholly alien forms of vegetable and 
animal organisms — a miracle, indeed, which evolutionists like Le Conte 
and Dawson and many more declare that mere evolution can never 
account for— are subjects of new wonder. This income of life itself, 
in the vegetable world, enfolded in a seed, laying hold on all the 
elements of earth, air, water, using sunlight and shadow, heat and 
cold, chemical affinities and elastic mysteries, cohesions and gravity, 



540 

and building out of the same soils and climates — by some witch- 
craft of its own — ["Blind chance," probably, according to the "high- 
est intellectual progress."] a rose, a lily, a weed, an oak, a lucious 
fruit, culling out its flavors, its colors, its forms, with so subtle an 
art that man can never even account for or so much as follow its 
selections or its processes, will challenge reason" (48:107, 108). 

After reading but the foregoing extract, does it seem to you 
that it is all the result of "blind chance" evolution acting through 
unconscious non-purposive causes under "appropriate conditions," 
which makes a rose, a lily, a weed, an oak, a luscious fruit, all 
grow in the same soil side by side? 

"If knowledge comes to us through the senses, unless there be 
a sixth sense, how can we know that God is." — Lacy (98:82). 

The following is Father Lambert's answer: 

"If knowledge comes to us through the senses, unless there be 
a sixth sense, how can we know that God is." — Lacy (98:82). 

The following is Father Lambert's answer: 

"If knowledge comes through the senses alone * * * how 
can I know that Mr. Lacy exists? I never saw, heard, touched, 
tasted or smelled him. Now if there be no other means of acquir- 
ing knowledge than through the five senses, how can I know that 
he exists, since none of my senses testify to his existence? He 
has never come within reach of any of them. So far then as my 
senses are concerned he is to me as that which is not. Ah, but 
did you not read his 'Reply to Lambert's Notes on Ingersoll?' I 
have read a book with that title, but which of my five senses tells 
me that the book ever had an author or that an author was neces- 
sary? I have the knowledge that a book must have an author. As 
this knowledge could not come through the senses, which testify 
only to the book's existence, it must have come to me through some 
other source, and therefore knowledge does not come to us through 
the senses alone, whether they be five, six or twenty. What then 
is the mental process by which I came to that intellectual state in 
which I can affirm Mr. Lacy's existence? My reason, enlightened 
by the idea of being in general tells me that a book could not 
come into being without a cause or author. [Oh yes, it could 
through "spontaneous generation" under "appropriate conditions" 
of viillions of years.] My senses tell me that a book is in being. 
My reason then says, therefore its author also exists, and this affir- 



541 

mation of reason to itself constitutes what we call knowledge. It 
follows that my knowledge that the 'Reply' had an author comes 
from reason and not through the senses. It is the result of a 
judgment of reason. * * * This being premised, we can now 
consider the question: 'How can we kaoio that God is?' We have 
seen how we know that you exist, namely, because you did some- 
thing — wrote a book. Well, there is another book called the Book 
of Nature. It is an admirable work, an exhaustless source of in- 
struction, pleasure and amusement. Unlike some books it bears 
reperusal; unlike others it never requires a second edition. It has 
a way of reproducing its leaves as Time's skeleton finger stains and 
mars them, and presents fresh pages to its readers as they hurry 
past from the cradle to the grave. Humanity, as it rises and sinks 
wave after wave, gazes on them in admiration as it passes away. 
But the book remains ever ancient and ever new while intelligences 
flit past it and are gone. * * * Xow, if your book proves yoii^r 
existence, why should not this magnificent Book of Nature prove 
the existence of its author? If my reasoning be sound in one case 
why is it not sound in the other? The process is the same in 
both, I know you are by your work; I know God is by His work. 
If you deny the validity of this reasoning you destroy in me the pos- 
sibility of knowing that you exist; if you admit it, you admit that 
there is a way of knowing that God exists" (98:82, 83, 86, 87). 

Can unbelief get around that reasoning for the existence of 
God? But, says the unbeliever, the author of a book had a begin- 
ning and must have had a maker, then who made the Author of 
the Book of Nature if the analogy of a book and the universe is a 
correct one? If we then ask who made the universe we are told 
that it is eternal. Well, then, that is the answer to the question, 
Who made the Author of the Book of Nature? The Author is 
eternals and, therefore, needed no maker or designer. Now what 
has unbelief to say to that? Unbelief says that the "universe * * * 
is, always was, and forever will be. It did not 'come into being;' 
it is the one eternal being" (165:253). 

If then we, who believe in God, transfer that belief and make 
God eternal instead of the universe without a maker, are we 
doing anything that is more impossible to conceive in thought than 
is the conception in thought that the universe is eternal and that 
its orderly arrangements are due to unconscious, non-purposive 



542 

causes, acting through the impulse of "blind chance" under "appro- 
priate conditions" of millions of years? 

"The mind of every thoughtful man is forced to one of these 
two conclusions, either that the universe is self-existent or that 
it was created by a self-existent being. To my mind there are far 
more difficulties in the second hypothesis than in the first" (165:254). 

To my mind, however, there are far more difficulties in the 
first hypothesis than in the second, m which the universe was 
created by a self -existent Being, — God. How is it with you, when 
you remember all that has Ibeen said so far, in this book, on the 
existence of God, and of the universe with its myriads of plant, 
animal, and human life, — its planets ranging from about 2,000 miles 
in diameter to the hundreds of thousands of miles, all moving with 
a speed than can scarcely be imagined and held in their orbits 
without any visible support? Can you believe all this is the result 
of "blind chance"? 

"Quitting the domain of history, Ingersoll goes to meta- 
physics, and asserts that man has no ideas, and can have none 
excepted those suggested by his surroundings. He tells us that 
man cannot conceive of anything utterly unlike what he has seen 
or felt. In a word he tells us that ideas and conceptions are the 
reflection of things. * * * Now, if the broad proposition be 
true that man has no ideas except those suggested by his sur- 
roundings, whence comes the idea, that has run like a golden gleam 
through the ages, of one Eternal and Omnipotent God? [Why, 
"spotaneously generated," of course, for it is an axiom of science 
that from nothing, something comes through the intervention of 
"appropriate conditions" of millions of years.'] Whence comes it? 
[Why, it is eternal. The idea of an Omnipotent God is an illusion 
of evolution that is, always was, and forever will be.] By Inger- 
soll's own argument, by his] own philosophy, by his own meta- 
physics, there must be such a God, else the idea would not exist" 
(190:40, 41). 

So then if the idea exists of a God it must have been sug- 
gested by surrounding, according to Mr. Ingersoll's own metaphysics. 
Unbelief is getting caught in its own traps, is it not? a. f. y. 

"In the problem of evil we have a serious difficulty, — the oldest 
and gravest difficulty to belief in a God worthy of our worship. 
But, while it is a difficulty, the difficulties on the other side, in 



I 



543 

rejecting the idea of any divine causation or any beneficent pur- 
pose, are far greater (183:92). 

As I have already shown how evil may exist in God's universe 
and He be exonerated from all blame of it, because He governs the 
universe by law with penalties attached for its violations, and hav- 
ing created man with a reason, free will, and power to do as he 
chooses to, the problem of evil then cannot be regarded as an argu- 
ment against the existence of God, can it? a. f. y. 

"If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future * * * 
why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and 
through them the world, that man should not persecute, for opinion's 
sake, his fellow man? Why did he not cry, 'You shall not perse- 
cute in my name, you shall not burn and torment those who differ 
from you in creed' " (165:267, 268). 

When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," did not that imply the 
meaning that His diciples in all ages were not to persecute, bum, 
or torment anyone for opinion's sake? And did He not, through 
His diciples, tell the world that man should not be persecuted for 
differing from them in creed? Here it is: 

"A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition, 
avoid" (Titus 3:10). 

To avoid a heretic is different from that of treating him the 
way man-made religions, in all ages, treated him by crucifiction, 
the stake, the dungeon, the rack, the iron virgin, etc., is it not? 
Well, then why is unbelief so devoid of "honor bright" and did not 
say that Jesus did tell the world, through His disciples, that a her- 
etic was to be left alone, — avoided after one or two admonitions, 
and was not to be persecuted, burned, or tormented for opinion's 
sake, or for differing from them in creed? Does unbelief labor 
under the irajDression that its "verbiage" and misrepresentations 
will "bumfoozle" the people all the time? Or what kind of Bibles 
have they been reading, if they read any at all, that did not con- 
tain the injunction, "A man that is a heretic, after the first and 
second admonition, avoid"? 

We have now seen some of the arguments for and against the 
existence of God, and I will leave it to the reader if the arguments 
for the existence of God do not outweigh those arguments against 
His existence. 

We will now look at another phase of the subject of the exis- 



544 

tence of God and that is, the worship and providence of God, 
Some may think that a God who governs by inexorable law is one 
who cannot be reverenced, or be pleaded with, or be praised because 
it would have no influence on Him anyway, if He lets His law take 
its unchanging course. As regards to reverencing Him I will let 
another speak. 

"It is the merest truism to affirm that a power which acts 
continuously and according to law, must always be a higher object 
of reverence than a power which acts impulsively and without 
regard to law." 191:225. 

That is true is it not? It makes God just and not partial or 
capricious Who would r-eward where not merited or punish where 
not deserved. Is not such a God a higher object of reverence 
than is the capricious, partial, and vindictive Jewish Jehovah and 
orthodox God who wills, sends, or decrees any . one any suffering 
or misfortune, and Who chooses a certain race of people, and com- 
mands the extermination of others who in the end could not have 
been any worse than His "chosen" people were in the end? And, 
as already stated, a God Who acts according to, and governs the 
universe, by law is exonerated and vindicated from all blame of 
any evil, disease, or misfortune that befalls any one. Is that not 
so? a. f. y. 

As to the providence of God, I do not see where there is a 
legitimate place for it if He has endowed us with reason, free 
will and power to do as we choose, and if "what things a man 
shall sow, those also shall he reap," (Gal. 3:8) is true, which I 
do not think any believer in the Bible questions. If God's prov- 
dence were exercised outside of a general enforcement of His law 
then we would not have a free will. If I wanted to go to a saloon, 
blow in my money, and make a laughing-stock fool of myself, by 
getting on a busthead of a spree, and God would intervene before 
I got into the saloon so that I could not go in, then I would vir- 
tually not have a free will and power to do as I choose, would I? 
And if He intervened in one case and not in another then where 
would i His Fatherly providence come in that could be reverenced? 
Are we not all alike His creatures? And if so, then would He 
not be partial if He exercised a special providence over one and 
not over another? But it will be said that those who do not ask 
God for protection need not expect to receive the same favors that 



545 



those do who ask Him. In that case it may be asked, What be- 
comes of the attribute of God that He is all-powerful and "can do 
anything, and has only to will and the thing is done," (29:57) 
and He has not impelled all to ask for His special providence? 
Will it be said that God exercises special providence when asked 
to do so, but not otherwise? Read the following and see if he 
does? 

"St. Patrick's church at — Wisconsin was struck by lightning 
and destroyed last Sunday" (16: July 11, 1902). 

Why did not even the holy water that is kept in the church 




PEKPECTUAL ADORATION OF THE EUCHARISTIC (.iOD. 

exercise, as it is believed it does, a "supernatural" protectien over 
the church Ijuilding and protect from the lightning that acted 
in accordance with immutable law? Will it be said that no one had 
ever prayed that the church building be protected "from lightning 
and tempest" (Litany of the Saintsj? 

"The Superior began to look cheerfully to the future. But 



546 

alas! ihere now came to her and her Sisterhood a period of singular 
and bitter trial. [Probably He wanted to show them "signal 
favors" in return for their "perpetual' adoration of the Sacred 
Host," the Encharistic God.] On the evening of the feast of Our 
Lady's Assumption, 18 — , during an electrical storm, lightning struck 
the roof of the north wing of the buildings and tore it open. The 
-shock was something dreadful, and the terror of the poor Sisters, 
kneeling in prayer in their chapel, [To whom, or for what were 
they praying'?] was great and overpowering. But this was only the 
beginning of their heavy misfortunes. Hardly eight days later, on 
the feast of St, Bernard, [It is a wonder he did not "supernaturally" 
protect the Sisters from misfortunes.] the lightning a second time, 
between three and four o'clock in the morning, struck the chapel 
of the convent and flooded it with electrical fire. The two Sisters 
who were adorers before the Blessed Sacrament at that hour 
[Adoring the Eucharistic God as shown in cut here.] became 
almost unconscious from the effects of the shock, [It is strange, is 
it not, that their Grod who was immediately before them did not 
"supernaturally" protect His "adorers," and show them "signal 
favors" in return for their prayers of "vain repetitions?" Matt. 6:7] 
and the Perpetual Adoration was thus interrupted for the space of 
five or ten minutes, until two other Sisters could take their places 
before the altar. When daylight revealed the extent of the storm's 
damages, it was found that the entire north wall of the chapel was 
rent from top to bottom. [Looks like Grod wanted to rebuke such 
blind idolatry as perpetually adoring a piece of baked dough, does 
it not?] In consequence, the whole building [Which no doubt had 
holy water in every room] was so weakened and shattered, that 
the chapel could no longer be considered safe for occupation. The 
altar was removed to another room of the convent, and the whole 
north wing of the structure had to be supported by pillars, in 
order to avoid the danger of a complete collapse. Since that fatal 
day the Sisters have been obliged to carry on their work of Perpetual 
Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament [Which has "blessed" 
them with a building whose entire north vmll was rent from top 
to hottom by lightning.] in the little chapel under the roof, and will 
have to continue thus until the new chapel can be finished" 
(Benedictine Convent of Perpectual Adoration). 

That was contained in a circular letter asking for contribu- 



547 

tions to rebuild the building and chapel that was damaged as 
stated. Is it not strange that no "supernatural" divine providence 
was exercised, in the first place, and protected those from loss who 
were "perpetually" adoring Him, and, in the second place, kept 
that circular letter from getting into the hands of the modern 
"Judas" who has analyzed it for you in this book? 

What has become of all the "supernatural" providences of holy 
water, rosaries, blessed candles, Eucharists, etc., in the convent in 
which they, no doubt, were at the time of the electrical storms 
whose lightnings rent frovi top to hottom, its entire north loallf 
If I wanted to be bigoted, fanatical, and narrow-minded as some 
are, I could say that in that incident God rebuked and showed 
His displeasure at the blind idolatry of adoring a piece of baked 
dough as a God, could I not? But I do not say it because it is 
not the fact. The lightning simply acted in obedience to law and 
the first object that attracted it it descended down on, and it 
made no difference whether that object be a church, a convent, a 
house, a barn, a tree or what not, and whether it has been 
sjjrinkled with holy water or not, it is going to strike it, and no 
"supernatural" ijrovidences are going to interfere to prevent it from 
striking. 

"While Mrs. — was out collecting for Father — ,s new church, 
Tuesday afternoon, she slipped and fell on the sidewalk, breaking 
her leg." (16: July 18, 1902.) 

I will venture to say that that lady had on her, at the time 
of the fall, at least one Scapular and if she had, why was she not 
"supematurally" protected- from misfortune? Surely the work she 
was doing could not have been regarded as evil and that God was 
l^uuishing her for it, could it? 

And no doubt she even had the priest's blessing in the work 
she was doing. Then why was not God's providence exercised 
over her and protected her from her misfortune? It is simply be- 
cause God governs by inexorable and immutable law, and if He is 
impartial and just to all, then He cannot exercise any special 
providence over any one. He has endowed us with a reason, free 
will, and power to do as we choose to, and if we are thoughtless 
and careless and thereby become exposed to accident and get hurt 
God is not to be blamed for it because He did not intervene and 
Ijrevent the accident. 



548 

So far I have cited only the misfortunes to Catholics, and in 
order that the non-Catholic cannot say that those incidents, which I 
mentioned, were rebukes of God of Catholic idolatry I will cite 
an incident in which it certainly cannot be said that it happened 
as a rebuke of any such thing. 

"The coroner's ju.ry decided this morning that the death of 
the Rev. — * * * -^vho was killed by an electric car on the 
bridge * * * was due to an unavoidable accident. The testi- 
mony given at the inquest showed that the Rev. — had attempted 
to cross the bridge when he became blinded by a cloud of steam 
[Why did not divine providence hold him back before he got into 
the steam and smoke which blinded him?] and smoke from an 
eno"ine passing underneath the bridge, and could not have seen the 
car which struck him. * * * The Rev. Mr. — was the pre- 
siding elder of the — conference of the United Brethren church. 
He had been in the ministry for twenty years. [Surely, a time 
long enough to have won the special providence of God.] * * * 
He left- a wife and six children." (57:1903.) 

I could cite more instances of misfortune to non-Catholics, if 
I wanted to, but I do not think it necessary, for I believe the case 
cited just now, proves conclusively my contention that there is 
no such a thing as special Divine providence, and there cannot be 
where God is not' partial, and man has been endowed with a 
reason, free will, and power to choose to be careless and thought- 
less if he wants to be so. 

When a mother is so careless and thoughtless as to leave an 
innocent child, that can just walk, in the midst of tubs of water, 
boiler, etc., on the floor, while she leaves the room for a time to 
do some one thing or another, and the child in her absence falls 
into a tvib of water, or a boiler and is drowned, would not that 
have been a time for Divine providence to have intervened and 
suspended the law of gravitation so the child woidd not have been 
drawn into the tub or boiler in losing its balance, which precipi- 
tated the child into the water that drowned it? 

When we behold the many misfortunes which befall us can we 
not trace them, as a rule, to some cause or other over which we 
had control had we exercised only the proper care and thought in 
time? If I had not been so thoughtless on that fatal Wednesday, 
already mentioi^ed, and had not wandered into a knee-high oats 



549 

patch — that was wet from rain and dew- — after a • rabbit I would 
probably not have gotten that attack of rheumatism which has re- 
sulted so disastrously to me, and has caused untold anxiety and 
worry to others. If there is such a thing as special Divine provi- 
dence why was it not exercised over me between the time at which 
the Sisters told my sister she ought to be proud of such a model 
young man, who goes to church and the sacramen*^? so regularly, 
being her brother, and the time when a priest said he thought John 
was too good a Catholic ever to lose his faith, and protected me 
from the incipient steps which led to my present affliction that 
gave me time to think and by thinking lost the Catholic faith? 

Of course the non-Catholic, who has not very much love for 
the Catholic Church, may say that that was the way Divine prov- 
idence worked, that it was preparing me to attack the errors, idol- 
atries, superstitions, and blasphemies of the Catholic Church. But 
how about it when I attack, in like manner, his or her infallible 
Bible? Are you ready to admit that the Bible is no more infalli- 
ble than the Pope? 

I have read the book entitled "Shall We Believe in a Divine 
Providence?" by D. W. Faunce, D.D., and after having read it I was 
forced to the conclusion that Divine providence had very little, if 
anything, to do with the affairs of men and nations. If one reads 
Catholic literature, the devil has been the prime mover in certain 
events of history, and if one reads non -Catholic, or Protestant, lit- 
erature God was the prime mover in those same events of history. 
So then, what becomes of Divine providence, when it contradicts 
itself if looked at through Catholic and non-Catholic spectacles? 
a. f. y. 

Now that it has been made apparent that God exercises no 
special Divine providence, but that He governs by immutable law, 
and can therefore not be influenced by prayers or pleadings to sus- 
pend the operation of His law can it be said then that such a God 
is not an object of the highest reverence? And what is the most 
pleasing service that we can render to God? Is it in perpetually 
adoring Him in the Eucharist; in saying vain repetition prayers; 
in eating Him frequently in Communion; in saying the Rosary 
which honors the Blessed Virgin; in fasting so scrupulously exact 
as to observe the trivialities the Church makes use of when she 
says: 



550 

"Such eatables as butter, eggs, cheese, fruit and the like are not 
permitted at this breakfast [During Lent.] and milk only in suffi- 
cient quantity to merely color the warm drink. [Of coffee, tea or 
chocolate.] At the evening collation the fourth part of an ordinary 
meal is permitted" (1:21, Mar. 1903); in processions in which the 
statue of the Blessed Virgin is carried and the children sing 
"Sancta MSlta, ora pro nobis," or in processions in which a piece of 
baked dough is carried about for a God? Is that what Jesus sum- 
marized as that which would be pleasing to God and which would 
bring forth the pleasing welcome of "Come, ye blessed of my 
Father" (Matt. 25:34-45)? Hardly. Well then let us live the reli- 
gion of humanity of Jesus and not waste our time, money, and 
health in blind, idolatrous and superstitious nonsense. 

Even in the moral realm God governs by law, for how other- 
wise can one's conscience, twhich has not yet become seared, feel 
remorse for a deed committed of which no one else knows anything 
about? 

"After battling ten years with a conscience that day and night 

tortured him, * * * confessed to his wife * * * a 

crime committed ten years ago, and then committed suicide 
* * * When a boy of 15 years, — engaged in a game of cards 
with a friend and two other young fellows. All of the youths were 
drinking. [This did not happen in Kansas.] — won and was ac- 
cused of cheating by two of the party.. [That is usually the case 
in card playing, to cheat and quarrel.] A fight followed and — 
drew a revolver and fired several shots, killing the two who had at- 
tacked him * * * — left — and became a wanderer over the 
country. His friend remained behind and paid the penalty with 
his life * * * He was tried for the murder and died without 
revealing (his friend's) name. — learned of his friend's death 
through the newspapers and, haunted by the crime he had com- 
mitted, fled farther from the scene * * * Jje married and de- 
termined to settle down * * * and lead a quiet, retired life, in 
the hope that he might in some way atone for his crime. But his 
conscience gave him no peace and life became a burden * * * 
Just before retiring — told his wife of the crime that had weighed 
him down for so many years. [It is strange that evolution, which 
can evolve things under "appropriate conditions," did not here, un- 
der "appropriate conditions," — for certainly that was an appropriate 



551 

condition when no one but himself knew he had committed a crime, 
— evolve a conscience that would have been at ease, is it not?] He 
told her * * * j^^^y j^g j^^^j been tormented by his conscience; 
had in vain soiight to forget the deed, and how the blood of the 
men seemed ever before him" (57 -.July 5, 1902). 

That is an example for you Agnostics who teach the children 
in Sunday school the non-existence of God. Do you not think you 
are thereby doing children an irreparable wrong for teaching them 
thus? To teach a child there is no God why then should it fear 
to do any wrong where it sees no one can know of it, and that all 
it needs to fear is not to be caught in its wrong doing by a human 
being? The young man, in the incident jiist cited, would not need 
to have feared for his crime because no one knew of it but himself, 
yet he had no peace of conscience. Why was it thus if there is 
no ■ God to cause anyone remorse of conscience for wrong doing? 
Would evolution evolve such a conscience if evolution works toward 
the good and happiness of beings? Was their any happiness for 
the man to have his conscience tormented from the time he com- 
mitted a crime until he took his own life as a result of that re- 
morse? Evolution cannot account for that then can it? We have 
no other alternative then but to believe that conscience is a crea- 
tion of God, and that it can, like all other faculties of man, be 
nurtured or be destroyed, become seared, dead, as it were, is that 
not so? 

Here is another case somewhat similar to the other which cer- 
tainly cannot be accounted for on the theory of evolution, and the 
non-existence of God. 

"Pursued and tormented by a remorse and fear that would not 
let her rest day or night, Mrs. — has confessed a murder done by 
her husband, a murder which she helped him to conceal. * * * For 
three years Mrs. — kept the secret, but the memory of the deed 
was with her always, driving her to the verge of insanity. When 
at last she could bear the strain no longer and she went with her 
story to the county attorney she first wept, her form shaking with 
her sobs, and then, in a firm voice she unburdened her soul of the 
secret that will send her husband to the penitentiary and make her 
despised and hated of all men. — , the husband, is under arrest 
To the court he has made a written confession of his guilt and says 
that now, with the penitentiary before him, he has found the first 



552 

moments of peace since the midnight three years ago when he 
dragged the disfigured body of the little orphaned — through the 
weeds and buried it on the farm behind his house. * * * They 
had destroyed all i^hysical evidence that (the orphan) had ever 
lived. These two were the only ones in all the world who 
knew of (the orphan's) murder. No one else ever suspected tha; 
the orphan had been killed. * * * The little murdered child 
waif had not a friend on earth [But had more than a friend else- 
where] concerned enough about her to inquire into her disappear- 
pearance. But through the stricken consciences of the (orphan's) 
murderers the death of little — is at last to be avenged, partly at 
least" (57:—). 

How will the theory of evolution, and the doctrine of the non- 
existence of Grod, account for two persons, who had no occasion to 
fear anything from man if they kept their lips sealed, to have no 
peace of conscience from the time the crime was committed until 
they made a confession 'that would cause them in time to suffer 
publicly in order to atone for a crime committed in secret? Are 
not the Agnostics then doing the children, to whom they teach, in 
Sunday school, "the non-existence of God," an irreparable wrong, 
and will bring about in time a state of affairs such as existed in a 
certain nation at one time, and of which a writer says: 

"The French people saw such a sight once, [A people with no 
God.] and though it is near a hundred years ago, civilization shud- 
ders as it recalls the time when Ingersollism ruled France" 
(190:110)? 

It may be seen then that even in the moral realm immuta- 
ble law is operative as well as in the jjhysical and the material. 
And when anything befalls any one it should be said that "God's 
law be done" instead of saying, as theology blindly does, that 
"God's will be done." God's will is never that any evil, suffering, 
or misfortune should come over anyone. And when it is once per- 
ceived that God does not will, send, or decree any one any mis- 
fortune of any kind, but that misfortune is the result of either our 
own or of some other one's carelessness, thoughtlessness, profligacy, 
and perversion of reason, common sense, and free will, then God 
stands exonerated and vindicated and is a higher object of rever- 
eace, for working according to law, than if He were a Being Who 



553 

acted impulsively and punished where not deserved or rewarded 
where not merited. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Are you convinced in your mind now that there is a living, 
intelligent Being of power over and above the universe, Who 
governs it by law, and Who neither wills^ sends, nor decrees suf- 
fering or misfortune for any one, and whom we call God? Can 
you now give an affirmative answer to the question, "Is there a 
God?" If you can then live and teach it and help bring about the 
Fatherhood of God and the brott'.erhood of man and the religion of 
humanity taught by Jesus. 

Believing that I have successfully shattered those links in the 
chain of the evolution theory which T attacked, thereby rendering 
it useless as a theory for the origin of man, as being descended 
from some lower animal, instead of him being a special creation 
according to the theory which I gave, can evolutionists, atheists, 
and infidels now say that they are any freer from believing in errors, 
contradictions, and absurdities than are the Christians whom they 
like to harangue and taunt as superstitious and as hypocrites? Can 
they any more so say to the Christians, because I have undermined 
some of their fundamental doctrines, "I told you so" than Christians 
could say to them likewise "I told you so," because I have success- 
fully broken the links in the chain of evolution which I have 
attacked, and proved that man is not descended from an animal, a 
doctrine that one of them said, "after thinking it all over I came 
to the conclusion that I liked" (42:353)? Well then if the score 
is even is there any reason for refusing to acknowledge that one 
was in error in the past on matters of religion or of evolution, as 
I freely acknowledge I was once? 

I no longer regard it as humiliation and a wounding of my 
pride to acknowledge that I was once in error for believing that 
the Blessed Virgin could hear the petitions addressed to her, where 
now I know it is utterly impossible for her to do so, for no being, 
excepting God Almighty, can hear over 46,000 petitions, simultane- 
ously every second of time from one end of the year to the other, 
as I have already proved by mathematics, would be the case if she 
heard all the prayers addressed to her by Catholics the world over. 
And if it does not hurt me to acknowledge an error then why 
should it hurt any one else to acknowledge an error when made 
aware of it? 



554 

And now if all, whether once a believer or an unbeliever, will 
acknowledge the errors that they have believed in the past, when 
they are pointed out to them, and bury past differences is not the 
gap, believed to have existed, between them then narrowed down 
so that they can join hands and bring about, not alone the union 
of the Churches, but all reasonable and fair minded thinkers into 
one body? Do you not believe this would then be a better, safer, 
and happier world than it is now with the many sects, nearly all 
of whom are jealous of one another, afraid one or the other would 
inaugurate a reform that would help mankind in general, thus carry- 
ing off honors which they themselves would like to have had credit 
for? 

As the gap between the believer and unbeliever has probably 
been narrowed down so now that they can about clasp each others 
hands, the book might be brought to a close here, but there are 
yet a few subjects on which there seems to be some diversity of 
opinion that I will give them a little consideration and touch 
principally their weak and their strong points, enough so as to 
start one to think and reason on them. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



SOCIALISM, SINGLE TAX, AXARCHJ. 

As these subjects have each an element in them that is com- 
mon to all three we will consider them together, for they all have 
a bearing, more or less, on religion, and as I desire to bring as 
many as possible into the One Church which I hope will be reared 
on the ruins of the various denominations in existence at present, I 
thought it not amiss to give the above subjects a little considera- 
tion. As volumes could be written in reviewing each of the sub- 
jects separately, and as but a limited space will be devoted to them 
in this book at present, I will consider but a few of their theories, 
and if I can show or prove that they are erroneous then the whole 
must be regarded as of somewhat doubtful tenure. If certain of 
their theories were carried out it would have to ignore religion, and 
to some extent justice. 

"It [Socialism] assumes that all wealth is produced by the 
labor of society, [Which I do not question] that it is, therefore, 
the property of society, and that justice can be realized only by 
dividing equally that which belongs to all" (192:102). 

So then if two. laborers work side by side, one spends his earn- 
ings, saying, "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," or "I 
am not going to have the lawyers fight over my will," — answers 
young men made to me when 1 advised them to save their money — 
and another saves his earnings in anticipation of attaining a fairly 
old age that he may have something to live on then, why then, 
according to Socialism, the one who saved his earnings must divide 
equally with the other fellow when he demands it, and when having 
done so justice would be realized. Would you call that justice? 
a. f. y. 

"It is the continuous increase of rent — the price that labor is 
compelled to pay for the use of land, which strips the many of the 
wealth they jiistly earn, to pile it up in the hands of the few, who 
do nothing to earn it. [Yes, but probably their ancestors who did 
not live on the "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young" 
plan, put their savings in real estate — land, that in generations to 



556 

come would become inconceivably valuable.] Why should they who 
suffer from this injustice hesitate for one moment to sweep it 
away? Who are the land holders that they should thus be per- 
mitted to reap where they have not sown" (176:306) i* 

Those are the words of the champion of the Single Tax theory. 
If that advice were followed would not as already stated, religion 
and justice have to be ignored, and would it not be but a stej) re- 
moved from anarchy? a. f. y. 

" 'We can dispense,' they [Socialists] say, 'with your idea of v 
man being created in his divine image; for we know that the differ- 
ence between man and other animals is only one of degree; [It 
seems they have fallen into the Darwinian delusion also] * * * 
therefore the future belongs to Atheism, in that alone there is sal- 
vation for humanity to recover its proper rights, so long bartered 
away for an illusive blessing'" (103:205). [The blessing of our 
ancestors who said: "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young,' 
even though our posterity will haver to suffer for it.] 

Here is more which shows that Socialism has a tendency away 
from religion: 

" 'After two hours' march, the procession [following an obscure 
Socialist to the grave, in 1878] reached the cemetery of the Free 
Church and through a gate, surmounted with the inscription, 
'There is no hereafter or meeting again,' they passed on to the 
grave, over which — , a Socialist Deputy * * * jjgij tj^g gj-gt 
funeral oration. — , he said was now before his judge, the judge . 
being the people now present, not the obsolete divinity of the 
past" (193:207). 

When I lived in Chicago I attended a few meetings of the 
anarchists, just before the time of the Hay market riot, and this is 
one of the things I heard there: 

"Let us rise up and make dynamite out of the grease of — " 
[Here they named some wealthy men, but you bet there were no 
millionaire brewers mentioned] . 

Those meetings were held in a Turner hall and the hall was so 
laden with the fumes of cigar smoke and the odor of liquor as to 
be quite sickening. Well, after hearing the names of those out 
of whose grease they would make dynamite, I looked up their his- 
tory and found that, as a rule, these very men who became so 
wealthy, even during one generation, were men of abstinence of 



• 557 

the use of both liquor and tobacco and that they were early and 
late workers. It seems that they did not li-ve on the principle of 
"I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," and spend a part 
of their earnings for liquor, tobacco, and ten dollar "blows" of a 
Saturday night in bawdy houses, as I have overheard young men 
say that they had "blowed" themselves ten dollars worth on a Sat- 
urday night in bawdy houses. It may be seen, then, that the three 
subjects. Socialism, Single Tax, and Anarchy have elements in them 
that are somewhat similar and may, therefore, be considered to- 
gether. All three would use force, and all three have a tendency 
away from justice, and, therefore, away from religion, and without 
religion there would be no belief in God, and without such a belief 
how far would it be reinoved from another Commune such as raged 
in France at one time? 

As I have proven the teachings of theology to be false when it 
says that God wills, sends or decrees misfortune to any one, so like- 
wise will I attempt to prove that the theories of Socialists, Single 
Taxers, and Anarchists, as to the cause of the unequal distribution 
of wealth, are also erroneous in the main. The key to the cause of 
the unequal distribution^ of wealth must be sought for in the indi- 
vidual and not in the economic conditions. 

The fact that two men working side by side earning the one 
twenty dollars a month more than the other and the one earning 
the less having the most to show for his labor at the end of years 
of labor, proves conclusively that the key to the unequal distribu- 
tion of wealth is to be found in the men themselves and not in 
any outside agencies. 

For three years I worked for the same company that another 
young man worked for. 'He had been with the company two years 
before I went to work for the company, and he received twenty 
dollars a month more pay than I did, he being a better educated 
man than I was he could do clerical work that I could not do as 
well as he. At the end of three years I had saved a thousand dol- 
lars, and how much do you suppose the young man, who received 
twenty dollars more a month than I did, and who had been with 
the company then five years, had at the time? You will probably 
say that he ought to have had at least fifteen hundred dollars, being 
he had no one dependent on him. Well, he did not even have a full 
month's salary, for during the month preceding the last pay day for 



558 

me with the company, I having sent in my resignation to take effect 
in thirty days, he borrowed five dollars from me which he paid me 
on the last pay day that I was with the company. I then had my 
thousand dollars, and he probably did not have a cent he could claim 
as his own, after he had paid others whom he owed, and I noticed 
there were a number of bill collectors who called to see him on pay 
day. 

If now we had worked together, say for fifteen years, I would 
have had at the end of that time five thousand dollars and he would 
in all probability not have had anything but his clothes, and those 
probably not all paid for. ' Now, according to Socialism, this wealth 
of five thousand dollars, which was produced by labor, is the prop- 
erty of society, and justice would be realized by me dividing equally 
with the fellow who has nothing, but who received twenty dollars 
more a month than I did. Would you call that justice if I were 
compelled to do that? Would not such a theory, if carried out in 
practice, place a premium on prodigality, and a discount on energy, 
thrift, and ambition? 

And now supposing that with the five thousand dollars I buy 
land near a growing city and which in time, through the growth 
of the city, becomes so valuable that my posterity in generations to 
come can live from the income from it without doing a thing to 
earn it, would it be justice to me if the descendants of mj' prodi- 
gal fellow laborer who left them nothing but tendencies to bad 
habits, prodigality, and disease, would not hesitate for one moment 
to sweep away from my descendants that which they reaped where 
I have sown? Do you suppose that if the fathers, grandfathers, or 
great-grandfathers of those valuable landed estates in some of the 
large cities had lived on the principle of "I am going to enjoy m}'- 
self while I am young," or "I am not going to have the lawyers 
fight over my will," or as laboring men have told employers who 
advised them to save their money and not squander it, said, "If we 
saved our money and became rich who would you have to work for 
you?" and had spent their money for cigars, liquor, ten dollar 
"blows" of Saturday nights, poker games, horse racing, costly "styl- 
ish" clothes for which the tailor never received pay, oftentimes, 
etc., that their posterity could now live in ease and luxury without 
sowing where they reap? 

If you want to blame anything for the unequal distribution of 



559 

wealth blame those ancestors of yours who let opportunities pass by 
them because they did not save that they may have had the means 
with which to take advantage of them. Supposing that some one 
of your ancestors, who probably lived on the principle of "I am 
going to enjoy myself while I am young," and who, therefore, had 
nothing with which to take advantage of an opportunity, an oppor- 
tunity was presented that if it had been taken advantage of you 
could now have some of the luxuries, comfort, and necessities of life 
of which you are now deprived, would not that ancestor be rightly 
blamed if you blamed him for your present impoverished condition? 

Remember that if you are not to be blamed because you have 
nothing and another has more than enough that it is because nine 
times out of ten your ancestor who had the opportunities let them 
pass by without taking advantage of them as those took advantage 
of them whose descendants now have more than enough. 

An old man, in his sixties, who was poor, told me that if he 
could have saved his money as I could he would have a trunk full 
of gold. Now how will Socialism explain why this man, who 
labored all his life, producing wealth, yet had none of it, — because 
he had not the faculty for saving that which he had produced, — 
except on the theory that it was the man's own fault, and that it 
was not due to any economic conditions? 

Will the theory of Socialism which is "The establishment of a 
system of co-operative production and distribution through the 
restoration to the people of all the means of j^roduction and dis- 
tribution, to be administered by organized society in the interest 
of the whole people, [Whether they are savers or some say, "lam 
going to enjoy myself while I am young," that is going to make 
no difference, I sui^pose.] and the complete emancipation of society 
[From the principle of "I am going to enjoy myself while I am 
young?" Oh no, it is] from the domination of capitalism" 
(128:411, Feb. 16, 1900) make us all equal in the capacity for labor 
and for saving oiir surplus earnings? Can Socialism create central 
stores from which each will receive equal share with another, be- 
cause each has produced or contributad share and share alike to 
it or because all have equal means? What then will become of our 
free will if no one can live so as to enjoy oneself while one is 
young by spending all one can earn and borrow? 

"The plan of Socialism is that products should be gathered 



560 

into large central stores, and then distributed among the various 
members of the community according to their claims upon the 
income of society; in other words, in accordance with their own 
individual income" (194:135). 

But how about it when one lives on the principle of "I am 
going to enjoy myself while I am young?" Is that not going to 
cut some figure in one's ovni individical income^ Bind, therefore 
one's claim on the products in the large central stores? 

"A Socialist is one who desires that the wealth of the nation 
be owned collectively by the people [Whether they live on the 
principle or not of "I am not going to have the lawyers fight over 
my will."] rather than by a small fraction of them — commonly 
called capitalists. By "wealth of the nation' is meant the land, the 
railroads and telegraphs, the flour mills, the oil refineries; in short, 
all those agencies by means of which food, clothing and other com- 
modities are produced. 

By Socialism we mean government ownership and management 
of all wealth producing industries. For instance, just as some of 
the industries, such as the common schools, the postofiice, [Yes, 
and I know where men lost good positions with the postoffice 
simply because they were going to enjoy themselves while young — 
by going on drunken sprees. Will Socialism make all men teetota- 
lers?] etc., are now owned and managed by the people. * * * 
It is certainly a praiseworthy sentiment that the citizens and in- 
habitants of a nation should desire to own their own country. It 
is as natural a thing for them to so wish as it is for a man to 
desire to own his own house, rather than to rent it of a landlord. 
The motive that inspires a father [Should have begun to provide 
before he was. married, and when he spent his earnings because he 
was '"going to enjoy" himself while youngj to provide a home for 
his family is of the same nature as that which animates the Social- 
ist, who desires that all shall have homes of their own. [Whether 
they have saved fifteen hundred dollars or not, which could easily 
have been saved in five years, if one with twenty' dollars less a 
month could save one thousand dollars in three years.] We said 
that every workingman who understood what Socialism meant would 
certainly be a Socialist — for assuredly your condition in life 
is not such that you should fear for a change. You are poor, you 
are dissatisfied with your lot in life, you have a sense of being un- 



561 

justly dealt with by society; you know that your labor alone pro- 
duces all the good things of life, and you know that some one else 
enjoys them; [That cannot be true if those who said "I am going 
to enjoy myself when young," enjoyed themselves by spending their 
money for cigarettes, liquor, ten dollar "blows" on Saturday nights 
in bawdy houses, and who if they saved and became rich an em- 
ployer of labor would have no one to work for him] you know all 
these things and you know, or you should know, that as simple a 
thing as casting your ballot intelligently can produce a change, so 
that you yourself will receive and enjoy all the fruits of your labor, 
[Which no doubt the young man thought he enjoyed who had less 
than a month's salary at the end of five years' labor, that he was 
enjoying "all the fruits of labor"] with no necessity of giving the 
lion's share, or any other share to such parasites as EockefeUer, 
Astor, Vanderbilt & Co" a05:3, 4). 

Who are at fault that Rockefeller, Astor, Vanderbilt and Co. 
[The "Co." cannot mean me, for were it not for my people, I would 
ere this have been in the poor house, notwithstanding my thrift be- 
fore the time that God "sent" me this affliction as a "token that He 
loved me" (111:123).] are parasites, if parasites they are? 

If it was the lack of the spirit of "live and let live," with them, 
have we not made use of the same spirit by patronizing them when 
they cut the prices of their products to throttle competition, rather 
than patronizing the small dealer and pay him a trifle more, who had 
to sell at a legitimate profit in order to live? Were we not in real- 
ity as selfish in principle as these so-called "parasites" who squeezed 
the life out of their competitors by underselling them, for a time, 
at a price that the competitors could not stand and live, when we 
patronized the cut prices because it would be money in our pockets? 

That is one of the puzzling questions to me why these unions, 
which are for the purpose of preventing any one from giving a cer- 
tain value in labor for a price less than the labor is supposed to be 
worth, will patronize any one who offers to give a certain value in 
goods for a price less than they are worth. Such action only shows 
their own greed and- selfishness. Do you suppose that if the people, 
who believe in the spirit of "live and let live" for themselves, had 
always manifested that spirit towards others that we would today 
have these "parasites," mentioned by a Socialist? Instead of rally, 
ing to the support of those who hold their goods at a value with a 



562 

legitimate profit and thereby also upholding tha manufacturer who 
pays labor good living wages, we rush to the "cut price" dealers 
because we are greedy and selfish and feel that we will be made the 
richer by a few cents or dollars. 

And how can the "cut price" dealers live, pay enormous sums 
for advertising, pay big rents and subscribe hundreds of dollars for 
the different events, conventions, celebrations, etc., which take 
place from time to time during the year in their cities, unless some 
pay for it? It is either a squeezing of manufacturers who must 
then keep the wages of their laborers at a minimum in order to 
be able to sell at a low figure to the "cut price" dealers, or else it 
is a freezing out some small dealer by cutting the price of the 
goods to a figure at which there is no more any profit and the 
small dealer is forced to sell, if he wants to save anything, to the 
larger "cut price" dealers at from fifty to twenty-five cents on the 
dollar. Is that not a fact? 

I venture to say that if all the people who believe in the spirit 
of "live and let" live" when it concerns themselves, would manifest 
that same spirit to others and would i^atronize no dealer who 
advertises to sell goods for less than they are really worth these 
large department stores — which are sapping the hopes, ambitions, 
and independence of struggling young business men who have put 
the earnings of years of labor into the business, — would soon melt 
away, bringing the shopping on from three to ten stories high down 
to the first and second floors from the ground, thus reducing the 
exhorbitant land values in certain localities and spreading the value 
over other land values that are now low on account of the con- 
gestion of business in a few favored localities, and which business 
has been forced into the air by the construction of tall buildings. 

When a store does business in buildings ranging from four to 
ten stories high do you not suppose that it must draw support 
from somewhere in order to go so high from the ground to retail 
merchandise? And where do you suppose the support is going to 
come from unless it is of the trade of small dealers who are scat- 
tered about the city? And if the small dealers cannot live at their 
business any longer and are forced to sell to those who do business 
in tall buildings does that not throw just that many more laborers 
on the labor market, thus forcing wages down, and also reduce the 



563 

demand for small store buildings thus reducing the land values on 
which they stand? 

That when a department store opens a business in a building 
from four to eight stories high, and advertises to sell goods at 
"cut prices," it affects the trade of small dealers, I know it to be a 
fact from my own experience. I had been in business about seven 
years, and those years were by no means called years of prosperity 
in the United States, and had increased my business year by year at a 
rate that was hopeful and gratifying, when a department store opened 
in the near vicinity. Weil, from that time on it was all I could 
do to hold my own, in fact in time I could not hold my own, not- 
withstanding the fact that I opened a second store next door and 
advertised to the extent of a cost of several hundred dollars. 

No doubt my advertisements were so small, because I could 
not afford to advertise like department stores could, that they were 
so overshadowed as not to be seen, and therefore did no good in 
the way of attracting trade. That such has been the experience 
everywhere where department stores have been opened may be 
seen from the attempts that have been made at legislation against 
them, in several states, but which was of no avail, because you can 
no more legislate department stores out of existence than you can 
exclusively by act of Parliament make any one moral or sober. 
The only way those things can be accomplished is by creating a 
public sentiment that uijholds the principle of "live and let live" 
even though it costs some sacrifices. 

If a public sentiment could be created that would not patronize 
any institution that offers to give goods at a less value than they 
are really worth then cut price advertising would cease for it would 
no longer attract customers if it did not advertise to give a value 
of 50c for 39o, or $1 for 69c, or $1.25 for 98c, or $2 for $1.39, or 
$2.50 for $1.98 etc., etc., and small dealers would then have a chance 
to do an encouraging business. 

The argument of department stores that they have become 
mediums through which the people may obtain goods at a less 
exorbitant cost than the small dealers can supply them is ground- 
less, for how many small dealers have become fabulously wealthy 
by charging exorbitant prices that department stores want to root 
out? Do not the big rents which they pay, the heavy advertising 
they do, and the many floor walkers and supemumaries which they 



564 

employ have to be paid out of the profits of the business? And 
when manufacturers already sell on a close margin to small dealers 
who buy in small quantities do you suppose that they can make 
such a difference in price to any who buy in large quantities so 
'^that the large retailers can sell at so much lower a price than 
others as they claim in their advertisements they do? 

I was in active business for ten years and hiow on how close 
a margin manufacturers sell their goods so that large quantities 
cuts very little difference with them in making special prices of 
any consequence. Another argument of department stores is that 
by having all lines of goods under one roof makes it so much more 
convenient for one to do one's shopping than it is to go to so 
many different stores and that it also saves shoppers time. Well 
if one reads the exjoerience of shoppers, as given from time to time 
in papers, one would not think that there was so great a con- 
venience and time saved in shopping in crowded department stores 
after all. 

But all that is not to the point so much as that of unions 
patronizing stores who advertise "cut prices" which must eventually, 
result in "cut prices" in wages to laboring men who work in manu- 
factories. If unions manifested towards others the spirit of "live 
and let live," which they desire for themselves, they would not be 
tempted by the advertisements of those who offer to give a certain 
value in goods for a less price than they are really worth 
and they would then give their patronage to those who sell goods 
at a living profit and who uphold the prices that the wages of the 
laborers who manufacture the goods may be upheld also. 

The first year or two that I was in business there were quite 
a number of stores that sold out at auction because there was a 
period of depression due to the reaction of a boom and the stores 
could no longer hold out. I attended those auction sales and bought 
goods ranging from ten to seventy-five cents on the dollar, but when 
I put them on sale in my store I did not cut the prices of them 
but sold them the same as regular bought goods because by doing 
so I upheld the prices so that my competitors, who had not bought 
any goods at auction prices, would have equal chance with me so 
that if I got any of their trade it was not to be because I sold at 
"cut prices." Then also there was this reason for upholding the 
prices: After those goods had been disposed of I would have to buy 



565 

at regular prices again, and if I cut the prices once it would not 
appear exactly just to have sold one person an article at a certain 
price that was less than would have to be asked of that person's 
neighbor who happened to buy an article of the same kind later. 
Again, did I not make just as much profit by selling a smaller 
quantity, of the goods bought at auction, at regular prices than if I 
had sold them off at a rush at "cut prices?" 

As I never again can enter the mercantile business, because of 
my physical affliction, this cannot be construed to mean that I am 
paving the way to the opening of a business which I expect to 
make successful by working on your sentiment now, but I am ap- 
pealing to you to think of the many young men, with small means, 
and in whom the sweet and tender emotion of love has been awak- 
ened by an object of affection, who would like to venture into a 
legitimate business that would make them independent and not keep 
them all their life time the servants of others, and who would like 
to infuse into the hearts of their sweethearts and young wives a hope 
that one day they may look up to their husbands as hopeful, happy, 
and independent business men. 

Do you not think that unless there is a little more of the spirit 
or sentiment of "live and let live" shown than there has been in the 
past that it will react injuriously on the happiness of innocent wo- 
men and children if their husbands and fathers have their hopes, 
ambitions and independence killed by the "cut price" department 
stores, which makes it an unsafe venture for young men to put 
their small means into a legitimate business? If the maxim of 
Socialism is "One for all: all for one" (194:148), then let them rally 
to the support of those who uphold the prices of goods that the 
laborers' wages may be likewise uj^held, and that the business may 
be done nearer to the ground spreading over more land and thereby 
making land of more equable value than it is now where the busi- 
ness is done in a few tall buildings in a favored locality. Then you 
will force some of the exorbitant land value estates to decrease and 
not leave them such "parasites" who cannot possibly spend their in- 
comes. That is the only just way -in which the valuable land own- 
ers in the large cities can be deprived of some of their enormous 
wealth. 

It is by practicing the spirit of "live and let live" wherever 
you are, by patronizing those near you who do not do a "cut price" 



566 

business. Then the department store cannot do the business it 
does. It would then have to ask for a reduction in rent which 
may be so low that it may not be enough to pay the expenses attach- 
ed to the keeping up of a many storied high land-valued property, 
thus compelling the owner to sell some one or other parcel of land 
which he owns in order to keep uj) his other properties. And with 
the spreading out of the retail center the other valuable lands cov- 
ered with tall office buildings would likewise decrease in value, for 
then smaller office buildings would be spread over more of the city 
because the retail business would then be done more on ground 
floors than it was when the department stores did it in buildings 
from four to ten staries high. If such a course were followed then 
within twenty-five years some of those enormously wealthy landed 
estates, in some of the large cities, would be considerably reduced 
in size, but still leaving them large enough so that it would bring 
the owners of them an income amply sufficient to to give them an 
easy and comfortable living. 

Such a course would not be unjust because you would then be 
patronizing the sniall dealer and' be passing by the "cut price" de- 
partment store instead of patronizing the department store and pass- 
ing by the small dealer as you did in the past. Make a little 
sacrifice in time and money if necessary, — but I do not think it is 
necessary when it comes right down to comparing notes between 
time and m(>ney spent in small dealers' stores and in department 
stores, — by patronizing the small dealers who sell goods at regular 
prices so that they may make an honest living for themselves, 
their wives and their children and thus give your sons, and your 
daughters who marry struggling young business men of small 
means, renewed hope and courage. You will then also help towards 
a more equal distribution of wealth by giving those your patron- 
age who have small means instead of giving it to those of large 
means who can afford then to pay the high rents commanded by 
the high value of the land owned by such so-called "parasites" as 
the Astors and other large landed valuable estates which their 
ancestors honestly and justly founded and left them. 

To use any other method of depriving them of their valuable 
possessions would be unjust and if the suggestion were followed of 
the Single Taxers to not "hesitate for one moment to sweep it 
away" (176:306) it would be anarchy if it were swept away by 



567 

force. It is the peoples' own fault that some landed estates have 
become so valuable. It is not the fault of the owners that their 
ancestors, generations ago, did not live oi^ the principle of "I am 
going to enjoy myself while I am young" and did not spend their 
money for cigars, liquor, poker playing, "stylish" clothes, ten dollar 
"blows" Saturday nights, patronizing "get-rich-quick" concerns, etc., 
but spent it for cheap land over which the city finally grew and 
made it enormously valuable. 

If people would not be so greedy and selfish and would pat- 
ronize their own towns whenever it were possible to do so, even if 
it would cost them a few dollars a year more to do so instead of 
going to larger cities to do their business, do you not suppose 
such a principle, if carried out by all, would have a tendency to 
increse the value of land in your own town and decrease it in the 
larger cities? 

Of course large city papers will say that people within a 
certain radius of a large city ought to take pride in building up a 
large city to which they could go occasionally for a change of 
scene and for a good time, etc., but if you do that does it not only 
increase the value of the land in the large city at the expense of 
your own town? Is there any satisfaction in a "pride" that makes 
millionaire land owners in large cities richer at the expense of the 
land owners, of which you may be one in your own town? 

Is that not helijing to a still greater unequal distribution of 
wealth by doing your trading or business in a larger city instead 
of doing it in your own city when you can do it just as well in 
your own city, the only excuse you can probably give for not doing 
so is because you think you can "do better elsewhere?" Why do 
you not then pull up and get out of the town altogether if you 
think you can "do better elsewhere?" 

You or your husband may be in business or a mechanic in the 
town owning probably a piece or two of land that has not increased 
in value in years, and you wonder why it is thus, while the value 
of the land in the city in which you do your own principal trad- 
ing is becoming more valuable every year. It is because you and 
many others like you think they can "do better elsewhere." That 
is why. It is blind greed and selfishness. 

If you practiced the spirit of "live and let live" at all times 
and patronized your home industries and your small dealers first 



568 

then the equality of wealth in landed estates would not be so great 
as it is. Then we would not have such 'parasites" as a Socialist 
calls them. 

There are other agencies, of course, by which the unequal distri- 
bution of wealth is kept up which has nothing to do with land 
values, but I just pointed out some of the causes for the inequality 
of land values between large cities and small towns and which has 
made such rich land "parasites" in large cities, and also how their 
values may in twenty-five years be materially reduced through just 
and honorable methods and without anarchistic methods such as 
Socialists and Single Taxers would make use of. 

"It [Socialism.] assumes that all wealth is produced by the 
labor of society, that it is therefore, the property of society, and 
that justice can be realized only by dividing equally that which 
belongs to all" (192:102). 

How will this "dividing equally" be accomplished if it is not 
by confiscation? 

"Why should they who suffer from this injustice hesitate for 
one moment to sweep it away? Who are the land owners that 
they should thus be permitted to reap where they have not sown? 
* * * And by the time the people of any such country as 
England or the United States are sufiiciently aroused to the injustice 
and disadvantage of individual ownership of land to induce them 
to attempt its natationlization they will be sufficiently aroused to 
nationalize it in a much more direct and easy way than by pur- 
chase. Tney will not trouble themselves about compensating the 
proprietors of land" (176:306, 326). 

How far removed from anarchy would that be if carried out 
as suggested in the foregoing quotation? a. f. y. 

"Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the 
slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that 
as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began 
to starve. This, however, is, of course, the^ result of our property 
system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine 
which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, 
in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work 
to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures 
the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred 
times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of more 



569 

importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that 
machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It 
would be an immense advantage to the community" (196:53, June, 
1902). 

If one man can buy such a machine why cannot the five 
hundred who are thrown out of employment? Supposing that the 
one machine owned by the one man can already produce five hun- 
dred times as much as he would have need of what would that 
have to do with the product of the machine owned by the five 
hundred men, and which now does the work for them instead of 
them doing it, if the men can use all the product turned out by 
their machine? Let the one man keep the product of his machine 
if the five hundred own a machine that will produce all thfiy have 
need of. Why should they take to thieving when all they need to 
keep them from it is one machine? But probably they have nothing 
with which to buy it because they or their ancestors lived on the 
principle of "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," and 
therefore, had not saved any money with which to buy a machine. 
Will Socialism give to men the faculities a distinguished person 
said some legislation was needed that' would give them that, namely, 
"thrift to the thriftless, industry to the irresolute" (197:198)? 

But says the Socialist that "To recommend thrift to the poor 
is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is 
starving to eat less. For a town or country laborer to practice 
thrift would be absolutely immoral" (196:52, June, 1902). 

Of course it would be insulting to recommend thrift to the 
man who has a wife and from three to six children, who has to pay 
rent, and gets only from, one dollar and fifty cents to three dollars 
a day, but would it have been insulting to have recommended 
it, when he spent, in his younger days, his earnings in ways already 
mentioned a number of times in this book? 

I know of "country laborers" who worked for years for farmers, 
at a certain wage for the year, and who had no expense but to buy 
their clothes, the farmers' families doing the washing and ironing 
of the mens' clothes, yet instead of having five hundred dollars or 
more, which they could easily have saved, at the end of that time 
had less than twenty-five dollars coming to them. And- they were 
good and hard laborers, too, but they lacked the faculty of saving 



570 

and if advised to save their money said that they were going to 
enjoy themselves while young. 

I have seen so much of this prodigality in the country and in 
the city that I cannot help but believe that where people are so 
poor as to suffer for the necessities of life, in this country at least? 
that nine times out of ten it is the fault of themselves or their 
ancestors, and that economic conditions, land values, etc., had little 
or nothing to do with it. I wish my experience and observation 
could give me a different conviction of it, but I cannot go squarely 
against what I have heard and seen. 

I have been a laboring person from almost childhood days un- 
til I was stricken down in my thirty-sixth year of age, and my 
sympathies are with the laboring people, but I do believe that 
the theories of Socialism, Single Tax and Anarchy, if carried out, 
will not help the wage earners. I believe the key to the solution 
of the perplexing question as to the cause of the unequal distribu- 
tion of wealth lies within the character of the individual and not 
in that of society. We must begin, then, by changing the indi- 
vidual. Of course that is at variance with the teachings of Social- 
ism, which "Aims first at changing the social order, and through 
the social order improving the individual" (118:875, Aug. 10, 1001), 
but that would be nothing out of the commonplace with me for 
my position, in nearly all of this book, is at variance with the 
commonly accepted opinions of the majority of the people, so that, 
no doubt, some think I got out of the bed wrong end to when I 
made up my mind to write this book. 

'"It is plain that no man can earn a million dollars in a brief 
human life, however hard he may work. But many have become 
millionaires, and while it is imipossible to do so honestly in a strictly 
ethical sense, we will admit that some have done so legally. This 
shows that these men have been enabled to do this only by the 
many advantages of the institutions of this country, and aided by the 
protection of the law" (196:50, June, 1902. 

Let us see whether or not a man may not honestly become a mil- 
lionaire in a lifetime. 

Sujoposing a man, as many have done, starts a brewery in a small 
way and by diligent attention to business his business increases from 
year to year so that he keeps on expanding so that in time he can 
open a private park. He has this park fitted up in such a manner 



571 

as to be so attractive that he can charge ten cents admission to it. 
People will flock to that park on Sundays in such numbers that it 
has reached as high as twenty thousand for a Sunday. At ten cents 
admission for each that makes two thousand dollars alone for just 
getting into the park. After they get into the park they can buy 
all the beer they want to, besides spending their money for other 
things, so that the money flows so freely into the coffers of the 
brewer as to lead a man to say once, when speaking of a particular 
park that it was a "regular mint" for the owner of it. The man 
who said that was no great money saver either, therefore his remarks 
could not have been prompted by a feeling of criticism of the way 
people spent their money, but it was simply the spontaneous 
expression of what he had observed. Now if these various ways of 
the brewer in making money, such as selling his beer in saloons, in 
parks, which are a "regular mint" for him, etc., make him a mill- 
ionaire, which he has become in less than a lifetime, can it be said 
that he did not honestly acquire it? or that it was due to the "many 
advantages of the institutions of this, country," and was "aided by 
the protection of the law"? Whel-e is the law that obliges people 
to drink his beer or patronize his park? 

If people have not common sense enough to see that they are 
making themselves poorer and the brewer richer by drinking his 
beer and patronizing his park is that the fault of the brewer? If 
he puts those things before you in order to get you to spend your 
money and you spend it, is that not just and honorable as it is 
for the drygoods merchant to display a tempting piece of dress silk 
and it tempts some woman into buying it who really has no need 
of it? 

No one is obliged to patronize a saloon or a brewer's institu- 
tions for making money, and if there are fools enough to j^art with 
their hard earned money so as to make the brewer a millionaire 
why that is not the brewer's fault and he honestly acquired his 
millions. Is that not so? 

As well say no one can, in a lifetime, spend a million or more 
dollars as to say no one can acquire that sum honestly and legiti- 
mately in a lifetime. But some have spent millions in a lifetime 
and afterwards wound up in the poor house. That proves then 
that land values, or economic conditions, or the "many advantages 
of the institutions * * * aided by the protection of the law" 



572 

has nothing .to do with the poverty of many but that the fault lies 
in the individuals themselves. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Now, if all men were total abstainers there would not be so many 
cases of extreme poverty as there are. The saloon is one of the 
agencies through which the rich are made richer and the poor 
poorer, but of course it would not do to say anything against the 
saloon or the practice of drinking for that would be an infringe- 
ment of "personal liberty." And you know how human nature does 
cherish the thought of having "personal liberty" — of making of 
themselves slaves of the liquor habit, and of enjoying themselves 
while young — and sufPering for it when old. 

It was when I tried to persuade a young, and another man 
who had a wife and children, to save their money and not spend 
it for liquor, as they did, when one of them said to me, "I am going 
to drink all I want to for I am not going to have the lawyers fight 
over my will." Ever since that time when the man said that, and 
that was in the '80s, and I see a young man under the influence 
of liquor — who has probably taken his whisky straight and is taking 
his walks otherwise — I say to myself that if he does not change 
there will be no danger that the lawyers will fight over his will. It 
is in cases like that where the following would be quite approjjri- 
ate if it could be made effective: 

"What is needed is some legislation that will give brains) to the 
brainless, thrift to the thriftless, * * * and discernment to the 
fool" (197:198). 

And if Socialism and Single Tax will do that then I say, "All 
hail, to them!" 

Now that it has been made apparent that I am not an enthu- 
siastic admirer of the drink habit, you would, probably, like to know 
my position on that subject. Well, I am not a Prohibitionist who 
would force a man to stop drinking, and would force the injunction 
by "smashing", a la Carrie Nation & Co., the drinking jjlaces. 
Although I am not a drinker, yet from what I have read and 
observed, I know that human nature is so constituted that it 
becomes, to a certain extent, that which it has been fed on, and it 
would, therefore, work a hardship to a nature that has become 
addicted to the liquor taste to force it to break off from that taste 
at once. 

So then the way in which I would bring about the reform 



573 

would be to regulate it in such a way that the rising generations 
would eschew liquor, leaving the old drinkers alone until their 
generation had died out. I would begin the reform by abolishing 
the "social glass" in the home, and at the banquet. Then I would, 
for the benefit of confirmed drinkers, who have lost their pride 
and no longer care if any one sees them drinking in a saloon or 
not, and who must according to the demands of their nature, have 
liquor to satisfy their appetite, have saloons in conspicious places, 
compelling them to be unscreened so that the people can see who 
is drinking at the bar. That would keep many a young man from 
going into a saloon if he were seen going in and could be seen, 
from the outside, drinking at the bar. It would be pride then 
that would keep out of the saloon the young man, and we know 
that pride is the sheet-anchor of many a virtue. 

If it should be objected to, in making drinking so public, then 
it must be on account of the disreputable character which drink- 
ing in a saloon is, and it is just for that very reason then that it 
should be made as public as possible. If drinking liquor in a 
saloon is not disreputable then why object to have it made so pub- 
lic as to be seen drinking in a saloon? Do you object to going into 
a drug store and be drinking soda, in the front end of the store in full 
view of the public passing by on the outside? If not, then why 
object to drinking liquor in full view of the public passing by on 
the outside unless it is because it is disreputable to be seen drink- 
ing liquor? 

The saloons should also be compelled to close at 9:30 p. M., 
excepting Saturdays, for that is late enough for any one to be out 
who has to have a good night's rest in order to make him fit for 
his work the next day. If all that was carried out a public senti- 
ment against drinking to excess would be created which in time 
would result in a gradual reduction in the consumption of liquor, 
and finally end in a complete total abstinence provided the women 
folks learn how to cook so the men can get their fill at a meal 
that will give the men strength to endure without liquor from one 
meal to another. 

There is no question about it but that poor cooking, such as 
soggy biscuits or bread, tough beef steak burnt to a crisp, scorched 
potatoes, "rily" coffee, etc., is the cause of much intemperance. 
For how can a laborer endure to work from one meal to another 



574 

without taking something that is supposed to give him strength — 
that is liquor, if he has not been able to eat a full meal on account 
of its being so poorly prepared? It is against nature to do so; he 
must have something and this something is usually liquor, which 
seems to be ever handy to him, be he at home, in the factory, or 
at work on the street. We must strike at the source or cause of 
things and not only at the effects. Nor is bad cooking responsi- 
ble only for some intemperance, but it seems it is a ijotent factor 
in the cause of wife desertion and divorce if this is true: 

" — , general secretary of the associated charities of , has 

studied this problem as it relates to the 125 deserted wives on the 
records of that organization. He found that most of the wives de- 
serted by their husbands were wretched housekeepers; that their 
homes were filthy, the children ungovemed and dirty, the meals 
irregular [Probably because they were members of the "G-amblers' 
Ancestors" club] and badly cooked. These conditions have a potent 
influence in causing men to desert their homes" (Daily paper). 
"Lessons in housekeeping should be subservient to nothing. Bad 
cooking may bring about divorce proceedings. It takes more than 
human love to withstand a daily diet of tough chicken" (57: — ) — 
Mrs. — . 

Now behind all that the seed of intemperance may be lurking, 
therefore, do not neglect to properly train your daughters in the 
elements of good housekeeping if you want to help destroy intem- 
perance. 

If then intemperance can be made to decrease gradually through 
employing methods, some of which I have mentioned, then there will 
be no need of prohibition or of saloon smashing. Saloon smashing 
is a mean, unjust and reprehensible piece of business. If public 
sentiment has created the demand for the saloon it ought not to be 
destroyed unless the owner of it is fully compensated for his loss. 
How many a saloon keeper, with a wife and family that are just as 
dear to him as though he were in a more honorable business, has 
his all invested in the saloon business by which he makes a living 
for them, and oftentimes that a poor living because the brewer and 
the cost of the license for conducting the business leaves him little 
for himself. Would it be just then to deprive the man of his means 
for supporting his family by smashing and ruining his stock and 
fixtures? As much as I hate and detest liquor and the saloon I 



575 

could not help but feel indignation for those fanatics who destroy 
and smash saloons. It seems some ultramundane fanatics have not 
learnt yet that men cannot be made moral or sober by an act of 
parliament and that human nature, as a rule, is as contrary as a 
mule. 

It is said that if a man wants to keep a mule in a parched 
and dry pasture all he has to do is to put the mule in a rich corn 
field alongside the pasture and that the mule will then jump over 
the fence into the pasture, and stay in it with a self-satisfied air 
that he has done just the opposite of what was wanted of him. 
The same it seems it is with human nature, especially when it gets 
liquor into it; if you attempt to coerce it then it is that it will re- 
bel and do just the opposite. Therefore temperance or total absti- 
nence can never be brought about through prohibition and the 
smashing of saloons; it can only be brought about by public senti- 
ment and persuasion. 

And the way such a public sentiment is to be brought about 
is to show the rising generations — the drinking part of the 
present generation being like a tree now which cannot be bent as 
a twig, therefore it would be only a waste of time and effort to try 
to change the sentiment in them — that, as a rule, liquor does no one 
as mirch good as it does harm. That it is one of the powerful agen- 
cies through which the rich are made richer, for the licenses paid 
by saloons helps to reduce the taxes the rich would have to pay if 
it were not paid into the tax treasury by the saloons, thus making 
them that much the richer for having that much less taxes to pay. 
That those who drink are not, even by their superiors who drink, 
respected and treated with the consideration that total abstainers are 
treated. I saw an illustration of that when I worked with a lot of 
men some of whom drank considerably. The "boss," as he was 
called, was a drinker to some extent, and he used to curse and swear 
at the men who drank when he would tell them to hurry and do 
this and that, but he never used such language towards me. And 
why was it? It was because these men had made beasts of them- 
selves and, therefore, they were cursed and ordered about like dogs. 
As long as that "boss" was about he never once cursed and 
swore at me, but he did frequently at those who made beasts of 
themselves, even though they were much older than I, and ought, 



576 

therefore, on account of age, have commanded the greater respect 
and consideration from a "boss" who drank himself. 

That the use of liquor will finally give one an odor that is 
offensive and which destroys the sweet flavor of "Shrewsbury clock" 
kisses which a man may want to give to his wife or forty-second 
cousins. And do you not suppose that a man likes to kiss wife 
even though he is already grey-haired? Read the following and 
see if what I said is not true about a man's desire to kiss his wife 
even in old age. 

"The principals in a — wedding were a groom of 75 and a bride of 
76 years. * * * In speaking of her wedding, the new Mrs. — said: 
"They [Their posterity by former marriages, both being widowed] 
objected to our marriage, but I guess — and I are of age. I have 
lately thought that there was an affinity between us; [How will 
evolution account for that if love is only an "affinity of two differing 
cells," and "what passes for love in men is only sexual feeling"?] 
that — was intended for me and I for him. I know he loves me, 
because he hugs and kisses me all the time" (Daily paper). 

Now do you suppose that if he had a breath that had the odor 
of a whiskey jug, or a beer keg, or a wine bottle, or, what is worse, 
an odor that came from a conglomeration of rot-gut whiskey, stale 
beer, and sour wine, that she would let him kiss her "all the time"? 
Hardly. And what healthy, normal young man does not one day 
expect to marry the "sweetest of the sweet"? Well, then keep 
yourself free from the sickening odors of liquor by not drinking it. 

Here is the way a distinguished divine dramatized the career 
of a man who drinks. 

"I believe there are five acts in a tragedy. 

"Act the first of the tragedy. A young man starting off from 
home; parents and sisters weeping to have him go. * * * 

"Act the second: The marriage altar. Full organ. Bright 
lights. Long white veil trailing through the aisle. Prayer and 
congratulation, and exclamation of: 'How well she looks!' 

"Act the third: A woman waiting for staggering steps. Old 
garments stuck into the broken window pane. Marks of hardship 
on the face. * * * Neglect and cruelty and despair. * * * 

"Act the fourth: Three graves in a dark place — ^grave of the 
child that died for lack of medicine, grave of the wife that died of 
a broken heart, grave of the man that died of dissipation. Oh 



577 

what a blasted heath with three graves!" (38:865, Oct. 16, 1901) etc 

Of course that picture of the career of one who drinks may be 
an exaggeration, as a rule, but I have seen and heard of cases that 
were almost a parallel of it, and I suppose it is only the drunk- 
ard's wife who can fully realize what a life of tragedy it is to be the 
wife of a drunkard. When I see a man staggering home drunk I 
can picture to myself what a greeting for a husband and a broken- 
hearted wife and innocent children it must be. Instead of coming 
home a sober, light-hearted, and smiling husband and father, with 
a little fruit and his week's wages in his pocket, he comes home 
drunk, sullen, cursing and swearing, perhaps, and with half, or less, 
of his hard earnings of the week! There is a contrast right there 
that is 'as great as that between heaven and hell, the contrast be- 
tween the sober man's home and that of the drunkard. 

When a young man says that he is going to spend his money 
for liquor because he wants to enjoy himself while young, or when 
married, because he does not want the lawyers to fight over his 
will, then are they only inflicting future suflPering on themselves? 
Are they not causing trusting wives and innocent, helpless, poor 
little children suffering for which there is no possible excuse, 
whatever, except the gratification of their own selfish and unre- 
strained appetite? No wonder that drunkard's wives have wished 
themselves dead when they beheld their own and their helpless 
children's sufferings. Therefore, young man, for the sake of your 
future wife and children, stop drinking liquor when you can yet 
do so, if you are a so-called moderate drinker, and do not be 
"bumfoozled" by any such false ideas as enjoying yourself while 
young, or in not wanting to have the lawyers fight over your will, 
or by the cry of others that you are a fool for resigning your 
"personal liberty," or that you have no will power because you will 
not trust yourself now with "social glasses" and moderate drinking, 
or that you are "soft" because a mother or a sister or a sweetheart 
has induced you to become a total abstainer! 

I have seen some appalling results follow from the use of in- 
toxicating liquors and know that no picture of its evils can be 
overdrawn. 

Because there are here and there cases where men have not 
been ruined or injured by the use of intoxicating liquors that is no 
criterion to go by that you may likewise fare as well. The odds 



578 

are always against tliose who tread on dangerous ground, and social 
glasses and paoderate drinking may be regarded as treading on dan- 
gerous ground. 

There is no question but that the use of liquor is a heavy tax 
on the laboring people, and by laboring people I mean all those 
who work for wages or salaries. No doubt the greater ijortion of 
our annual drink bill of one billion and eighty millions of dollars, 
for the United States alone, is paid by the laboring people. Just 
see what that amounts to if it were equally divided per capita among 
the inhabitants of this country. It would mean a little over four- 
teen dollars for each person, man, woman and child, and making the 
family even only as large as it is in France, where it is 5.03, it 
would mean over seventy dollars for each family each year and all 
for something that does the person more harm than good. Seventy 
dollars would buy, at an average of two dollars a pair, thirty-five 
pairs of shoes. Is every drunkard's family shod as though that 
amount was paid for shoes, annually? Seventy dollars would buy 
fourteen suits of clothes and dresses at five dollars each. Is every 
drunkard's family of children dressed as though that amount was 
paid annually for clothing? You need but observe the drunkard's 
or drinker's family to see for yourself that no such amounts are paid 
for the shoes or for the clothing and dresses of his wife and children. 

Nor is that the only loss that the drinkers sustain. They also 
lose time while drinking for which they receive no pay. They are 
also often robbed of the money they have about their person when 
they are under the influence of liquor, so that without question it 
may safely be said that what it costs, directly and indirectly, to 
drink is fully twice one billion and eighty millions of dollars annu- 
ally. What a cost that is, eh, for something that does more harm 
than good to the physical strength and health alone, not taking into 
consideration the baleful effect it has on morals? 

"I never knew a young man or young woman to go astray, and 
walk in the way of lewdness, whose departure from the path of vir- 
tue was not chiefly from the influence of strong drink." — Father 
Matthew (61:221-224). Yes, drink robs us of money and morals. 

At one time there was considerable agitation in a large city 
about renewing the license of a variety theatre because of its 
unsavory reputation. I had heard so much' about it that I did not 
think it could be possibly true of what was said about its immoral 



579 

character. Well, to satisfy myself on that score I went there one 
evening to see for myself. It was just something awful the sights 
I beheld and what I heard. At the entrance there was a bar and 
men standing before it drinking, as I passed in. On the second 
floor there were the boxes, which were more like stalls, and which 
opened toward the stage. Girls in decollete dresses, cut so low as 
to show the "foot hills," as an editor east of the Rocky Mountains 
calls them, and in tights and in, short of the knee, skirts, would 
go into the boxes soliciting the men to buy bottled liquor. I 
asked what the liquor cost there. They said one dollar for a half 
pint bottle of wine, that salesmen at hotels said they could buy 
there for twenty- five cents, for the same quality. Twenty-five cents 
for a bottle of beer that held just two glasses, one glass of which 
was supposed to be for the buyer and the other for the girl, for 
they were supposed to be "sociable" and treat the girls. The same 
quality and quantity of beer could be bought at hotels by salesmen 
for ten cents. The reason I know that is because I have bought 
goods from salesmen, during the summer season, when they would 
order a bottle of beer and had it brought to the sample room 
where they had their goods on display. I being a total abstainer 
the salesman would drink it all himself to quench his thirst and I 
saw that there were just two glasses of beer in the bottle. I asked 
what beer like that cost and was told, "Ten cents; you can buy it 
in any of the hotels of the country for ten cents." So then there 
was a plain case of robbery practiced in that variety theatre, as it 
was called, of seventy-five cents on a bottle of wine and of fifteen 
cents on a bottle of beer. 

And did the men buy any liquor? Well, if you had seen the 
drunken condition some of the men and the girls were in before 
the play, which was full of immoral innunendoes and suggestions, 
was over, you would not have thought otherwise but that they did 
buy liquor at robber's prices. 

After the girls got the men loaded up with liquor they would 
sit in the boxes with the men and smoke cigarettes, so that the 
atmosphere of the house was almost stifling. There was one young 
fellow there who looked as though he might be but an ordinary 
laborer, for he had on very common clothes, and I do not suppose 
he was yet eighteen years old, he looked so young. I watched him 
particularly for he had no vicious looking countenance and wanted 



580 

to see if he had, at so young an age, already fallen into the depths 
of debauchery. He smoked cigarettes, and also became so drunk 
before I left the theatre, that he staggered, after one of the girls, 
into a room, at one end of the second floor of the theatre, over 
which was the sign "Furnished Kooms, for rent," and which could 
easily be seen from the boxes. 

There was an object lesson in that young man! Scarcely 
eighteen years old, a cigarette smoker, a drunkard, and a debauchee! 
And how many there are of such we cannot know definitely, but 
that the number is quite considerable may be inferred from the 
number of men who were at that theatre that night and who drank. 
Every box that 1 could see had men in drinking liquor, with the 
girls. Will any one dare say that the use of liquor is not an 
agency by which many laboring people are made poor and destitute, 
when some begin already to dissipate when yet in their teens? 
How will Socialism and Single Tax place in the hands of such the 
wealth-producing industries, and the management of them, without 
first improving the individual? 

It surely cannot be said that it was the having of a family 
that was crying for bread, and that he could find no work so as 
to earn money with which to buy bread to satisfy their hunger, 
that drove the elghtesa year old boy to drink to drown his troubles, 
can it? Well, then is not the key to the solution of Wie question 
of inequality in wealth to be found in the individual and not in 
economic conditions and private ownership of land? a. f. y. 

Supposing that one day this young man should come to the 
realization of the seriousness of life and should reform and marry, 
— which is not at all improbable for some of those who boasted of 
their ten dollar "blows" on Saturday nights in bawdy houses, are 
now married to respectable women, — and have a family, but because 
he dissipated away his money before he married and has, therefore, 
little or nothing when he gets married, and he cannot now»save 
much above that which it costs him and his family to live, and he 
becomes sick and his children, instead of going to school, will have 
to go to work in stores and factories to earn to help support the 
sick father, who is at fault there that the children have to work 
when they ought to be going to school? Was it economic condi- 
tions and private ownership in land or was it the man's dissipation 



581 

when young — "enjoying himself when young" — that is the cause 
which now compels the children to work? 

Of course I do not say that all who are poor and destitute 
now are at fault for their impoverished and destitute circumstances) 
for some have had misfortunes that swept away their possessions 
and some have been reduced in financial circumstances on account 
of spending their money on doctors, who never did them any good, 
for trying to cure them. But those cases are few and far between 
when compared with those who are directly at fault themselves for 
their destitute circumstances, and many of those can be traced to 
the agency of liquor drinking. 

That liquor drinking is undermining the character of the 
youth is an admitted fact by those who have been in positions to 
observe the effects of it on those who drink. 

"One of the principal evils undermining the character of the 
youth of the country and destroying the intelligence of men, not 
only in the army but in nearly every business and profession, is 
the use of tobacco and alcohol. * * * j a^j fully convinced the 
world would be better without either." — General — (39:94, Jan. 
30, 1901). 

As already stated, I noticed that smoking was as freely indulged 
in as drinking at that theatre, which shows that they usually go hand 
in hand and are, therefore, twin sisters of evil. It is no doubt the 
use of tobacco first, which finally leads many to drink. When boys 
in knee breeches smoke cigars, as I once saw three fairly well- 
dressed boys, in knee breeches, do one New Year's day, it would 
not at all be surprising if one day they took to drinking. One 
stimulant requires another so that as a logical consequence a boy 
who uses tobacco will in time crave something stronger than the 
mere use of tobacco affords, and that will be intoxicating liquors. 

Besides being a filthy, nauseating habit, the use of tobacco is 
not without its expensive side. When a man smokes at least twelve 
cigars a day for over twenty years, as a Christian Scientist stated 
he did before he became a Christian Scientist,— and afterwards a 
Christologist, — just see what that amounts to, not counting the 
matches used in lighting them, for he may have lit the one by the 
stub of another. Twelve cigars at, say, six for twenty-five cents 
would be fifty cents a day for twelve cigars. Leaving out Sundays 
and holidays, as days of rest on which he did not smoke, there are 



582 

at least three hundred days in a year, at fifty cents a day would 
amount to one hundred and fifty dollars for one year. In twenty 
years that would amount to three thousand dollars. Now, will not 
three thousand dollars buy quite a nice home? So then we will 
say a man becomes an inveterate user of tobacco at the age of 
thirty so that by the time he is fifty years old, just about to pass 
out of his prime, he has smoked, and filthied away a nice home 
which might come in very handy then. But he has no home and 
now if he is a Socialist or a Single Taxer and has no home and 
one who has saved his money and has a home why it would only be 
justice "by dividing equally" with the man who spent his money 
for tobacco. Would you call that justice? If you do, then you 
would place a premium on prodigality and a discount on thrift, and 
what would the world come to if such an idea became general? We 
would soon degrade and sink to barbarism, would we not? a. f. y. 

Just what the amount is that is spent annually for tobacco in 
the United States I do not know, but one in the tobacco trade 
made a statement that "two hundred million dollars were spent for 
smoking tobacco in the United States in 1901." And this the year 
of the great drouth at that. If we add to that an equal amount 
for chewing tobacco, which I suppose would not be far from the 
actual sum spent for it, we have four hundred millions of dollars 
spent in a year for the gratification of an appetite that, to say the 
least, is filthy, nauseating, sickening, and unhealthy. 

Do you suppose that it is healthy for a woman to step into a 
pool of tobacco spit, such as may be seen almost anywhere where 
men are about? I have even seen tobacco quids and pools and 
cigar stumps on the steps of churches where ladies had to pass 
over, Would you call that of the highest sanitary condition, and 
therefore, not unhealthy? Nor is that all that can be charged 
against tobacco. Just see how many fires there have been as the 
result of the use of tobacco. Yea, even people burnt to death on 
account of fires that were caused by the careless use of smoking 
tobacco. And that the filthy habit of using tobacco is the cause 
of some refined women not marrying may be seen from the 
following : 

"In regard to your proposed bill, taxing old bachelors and old 
maids, I would suggest, in behalf of the old maids, that you get a 
bill before the legislature prohibiting men from spitting on the 



583 

sidewalks, which would make the men much more attractive to the 
women in general. For my own part, I have never felt that I 
would like to be tied for life to any one with that filthy habit, and 
as there are not enough really nice, clean men to go around, the 
old maids should be exempt from spending their hard-earned money 
to help support and educate the tobacco spitter's children. * * * 
Don't think that I am a sour old maid, but I have worked in public 
office long enough to know men as they really are." 

It may be seen then that notwithstanding that "woman's 
strongest instinct, the maternal one" (198:153), is a fact, there are 
women so refined that they will forgo marriage and maternity 
rather than to be the wives of filthy tobacco using men. And are 
they not right? 

It is said that "love can only thrive in purity" (8:394), which 
no doubt may include purity of habits, and if it does, then can 
love thrive in an atmosphere of filthy, nauseating, and sickening 
odors of tobacco and liquor? And if love cannot thrive and live 
in such atmospheres and there are children born to married couples 
in such atmospheres are they not rather the penalty of lust then 
than the privilege of love? 

Bad habits may then also have a bearing on marriage, and 
non-marriage on the problem of women wage earners, which is 
beginning to afl:'ect the labor market for men. If a woman does 
not marry she therefore has no one to support her, hence must 
earn her own living, and in doing so comes in direct competition 
with wage-earning men, in many spheres of labor. And will not 
that, therefore, have more bearing on low wages than land values, 
which is the theory of Single Taxers for the caiise of low wages? 

As with liquor, so the tobacco habit is one that cannot be 
regulated with prohibition, nor can the taste for tobacco be well 
rooted out in those who have acquired the taste for it, therefore, 
the only way to rid ourselves of a filthy habit is to create a public 
sentiment against it by properly training the rising generation. 
The old generation we will leave alone, only pitying them that 
they have become the slaves of their appetities instead of being 
their masters. As much as I hate, detest, and loathe liquor and 
tobacco I have not the least feeling of resentment and condemna- 
tion for those who traffic in them or who use them. No doubt it 
was force of circumstances and environments that has caused those 



584 

who traffic in them and use them to do so. It is not every young 
man, as I had, who had a lot of nice girls for schoolmates who 
tabooed the use of liquor and thereby made him a total abstainer, 
as I was made a total abstainer by the Grood Intent girls of my 
day and generation. Therefore we must not condemn those who 
have fallen under the force of circumstances and environment. 

When we once have Christian Unity, as the result of the 
appearance of this book, we will amend the Constitution so that 
the taxes for the maintenance of» the public schools will be 
apportioned for two kinds of public schools; the one in which 
there will be only secular education, as now, and the other where, 
in connection with secular education, morality and cleanliness of 
habits and sobriety will be taxight. There will be no men of the 
cloth, who have an odor about them of a reeking nicotine pipe, to 
teach the boys the filthiness of the tobacco habit, but clean and 
self-respecting men and women who will teach that. 

It might be a good idea, too, so long as tobacco will yet have 
to be manufactured to supply the demand of the generation that 
is already addicted to its use, to create in the boy a distaste and 
loathing for tobacco in all its forms by making the boy, at about 
from eight to ten years of age, take such a big chew of tobacco, 
about teii minutes after a good square meal, and on the day before 
a children's picnic, that will make him so sick as to vomit out the 
meal just eaten, and so sick that he will not be able to go to the 
picnic. I think that would cure him for all time of the desire for 
tobacco. Anyway, that was what cured me of the desire for 
tobacco, although there was no picnic in my case. 

When I was about ten years old, during one harvest time, 
men, who helped us harvest, gave me a chew of tobacco, about ten 
minutes after I had eaten a big dinner, that made me so sick that 
I threw up my dinner, and, it seemed, some of my breakfast and 
'the sup]3er of the night before. Well, I can tell you that that 
experience cured me from the desire of becoming a "man"' by 
having smoke come out of my mouth like smoke out of a defective 
stovepipe, or by having a rivulet run down my chin like the juice 
out of the mouth of a panting dog. 

But now the stickler for liquor and tobacco may say, What will 
the people do for a living who now work in liquor or tobacco fac- 
tories, if there should come a time that there will no longer be any 



585 

demand for them, and therefore no more employment for people in 
those industries? By spending the one and a half billion dollars, 
now spent annually, in the United States, for liquor and tobacco, 
for clothing, shoes, food, furniture, and other useful and necessary 
things, which could be used to advantage, and for comfort in the 
homes and by the families of drinkers and tobacco users, there would 
be more of a demand for those things than there is now, and the 
people could then be employed in making those things, instead, 
could they not? Then the farmer's grain that now is used in mak- 
ing liquor will be made into bread stuffs, instead. There will then 
be more meat bought than now so that the farmers can raise fowl 
on land that may be too barren to grow anything but tobacco, al- 
though I believe soil that is too poor to produce any useful vege- 
tation is also too poor to produce tobacco. 

Then again, is not the making of wearing apparel, or putting up 
breadstuffs in packages, as congenial, healthy, and clean an occu- 
pation for girls as rolling up nauseous weeds and making up other 
things into smokers' and chewers' articles? The buildings now de- 
voted to the making of liquor or tobacco could, with not a very 
great expense, be converted into food-product mills or factories for 
the manufacture of useful and necessary goods. 

It may be seen then that to make the changes in the nature of 
the goods made would give just as much employment to jaeople as 
now and the cost in converting buildings into the use for produc- 
ing and manufacturing useful and necessary goods would not be so 
very great but that the sacrifice would be well repaid in a better 
and happier people. 

Will any one dare say that liquor has not caused many tears 
and is not the direct and indirect cause of a great deal of unhap- 
piness and crime? Bead the following and see what the use of 
liquor has caused. 

"The old county jail was never the scene of a more pathetic 
incident than that which occurred there this forenoon. In one of 

the cells is locked * * * ^[^q -^^^ brought from — to 

save him from lynching by a mob — , while insanely drunk, shot a 
man who tried to arrest him for burglary, and for this the people 
there threatened to string him up. — had a wife and four child- 
ren in — and a father and mother and several brothers and sisters 
in — . The wife and four children came — yesterday [After hav- 



586 

ing walked fifty miles.] and, being without money, slept last night 
in the charity ward of the — institute. — 's mother and sister 
caine from — this morning and all of them met at the jail door 
and went into together to see him. Ahead walked the old mother. 
* * * Next was her daughter. Behind her was the wife, with 
a four months' old baby at her breast. Behind them came the little 
girl of eleven, a boy of nine and a boy of three years. In this 
formation they climbed the iron stairway to — 's cell. * * * The 
aged mother wept and bewailed the fate of her boj . * * * The 
wife wept. The sister wept and the four children set up a wailing 
that resounded from the old walls of the jail. * * * — clutched 
the bars of his cell and hung his head low, and tears streamed 
from his eyes. [What a sequel to ''I am not going to have the 
lawyers fight over my will,'" but they will, probably, fight over 
saving his neck! J "Oh, — ! — ! What have yo*u done?' wailed his 
mother. * * * 'Oh, — , my boy! I'd rather see you dead be- 
fore me today. It will kill your poor old father. [What difference 
does that make so long as "I enjoyed myself, spending my money 
for liquor?"] He came home from [His place of work] last night 
and when he heard it he took his bed. * * * And what will this 
poor woman and ail those little children do? It was the drink that 
did it.' — raised his head, §hook his clenched fist on high, stamped 
his foot and cried: 'Curses on it mother! It was the drink.' 
It was too pathetic a scene for even the deputy marshal, used to 
sights of human anguish, to stand. He walked away with tears in 
his eyes" (Daily paper). 

That is an incident that might be a good thing for a young 
man to read occasionally while he has as yet not tasted liquor. 
And if he understood the law of growth and knew that an appetite 
is whetted by what it feeds on, he would undoubtedly remain a 
total abstainer all his life. Just see how much anguish might have 
been spared had the man in the foregoing incident been a total 
abstainer. There was his aged parents, his sister, besides his other 
brother and sisters who no doubt feel the disgrace of the deed 
committed by their drunken brother, the wife and probably the oldest 
child, and last of all he himself. Oh, what a terrible jDrice to pay 
for the foolish idea of "I am going to enjoy myself while I am 
young," or for "I am not going to have the lawyers fight over my 
will," or for taking a "social glass" for friendship's sake, which 



587 

whets the appetite for liquor antil one is no longer master of him- 
self, but the slave of his appetite! Is that not so? 

Yet there are people who, of course, not understanding the 
law of growth, will say, "Oh, it will not hurt to give the little ones 
a light drink of wine or beer, for if they are men when they be- 
come grown they will not make beasts of themselves." 

Yes, that is said because they do not seem to understand that 
stimulating things excite abnormal appetites, which, as a rule, get 
beyond the control of one's reason and will-power. 

Nor is liquor responsible only. for anguish and suffering, but 
also for much crime. Here is the verdict of one in a position to 
know : 

'If Ihad my way," said the police magistrate on the bench 
this morning, as he sent a "plain drunk" to the workhouse, "I 
would not only close every saloon in the country, Sundays and 
week days, but I would stop the sale of intoxicating liquors in any 
shape or for any purpose whatsoever. I would make it a crime to 
manufacture the stuff. This may appear far-reaching, but the sen- 
timent is justified by the sights and experiences in this courtroom. 
Ninety-five per cent of the cases tried here are the direct result of 
(liquor). * * * Mind, now I am not saying anything against 
saloon men. It is the stuff they sell [Because, with Cain, they 
can say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" So" if no one wants 
to buy their stuff there is no law compelling any one to buy it, 
hence they will sell it, and rightly, too, if any will buy it.] That 
causes all the trouble. There are few people in this world of ours 
who know how to drink (liquor), and this reiiiinds me of the — 
colonel's opinion: 'One drink of (liquor).' said he, 'is enough. 
Two is one too many, and three are not half enough.' [The latter 
seems to be the case, as a rule, with those who drink at all.] * * 
* Just so long as it shall continue to be sold, just so long shall 
we have police coiirts and crime. There's nothing particularly 
original about these remarks, but their truth is borne in upon the 
mind by the things we see and hear. The woes that arise from 
the use of (liquor), the ruined men and women, the broken fami^ 
lies, the griefs and tears, all aired in this court, are enough to turn 
gray the hair on a buffalo robe." (57: — ). 

And yet there are even so-called Christian people who will de- 
fend the use of liquor. 



588 

"Carefully collated statistics show that from eighty to ninety 
per cent of the crimes committed still have some connection with 
intemperate drinking" (192:225). 

The police judge is not alone then in his opinion as regards 
the eflPect of the use of liquor on crime, is he? We will now see 
what is said about the results of the use of cigarettes on the young 
as many acquire the tobacco habit through beginning with the use 
of cigarettes. 

"Dr. — , in his report to the Governor, gives figures [And, as a 
rule, figures do not lie.] to show that cigarettes are the cause of the 
downfall of more inmates in the — State Reformatory than all 
the other vicious habits combined. Of the 350 inmates in the re- 
formatory last year, 236 claimed that cigarettes had driven them to 
crime" (16: — ). 

Here it may be seen that fully two-thirds of those at the re- 
formatory were driven to crime through the use of cigarettes. Why 
boys will lake to smoking cigarettes may be due to the reason given 
below. 

"A boy argues with himself: 'Nearly all the other boys in town 
smoke, and it is so innocent and inexpensive. Why should I not 
learn the art also?' Innocent and inexpeiisive^ did you say? Did 
you ever calculate the expensiveness of 'cigareting?' Let me tell 
you, boys and young men, it is enormous. The habit of smoking 
cigarettes is far-reaching. Its effects upon the physical constitu- 
tion are great, upon the mental constitution greater^ and upon the 
moral * * * constitution Greatest. And then its effects upon 
the pocketbook are not small. It will lead to many serious evils, 
if persisted in, as physicians and text books on physiology and 
hygiene will plainly tell you^ and such evils as this are hard to 
bring under control. Stop it, boys. Throw the cursed thing away. 
It is a pernicious habit, and you will regret in after years that you 
ever allowed it to fasten itself upon you" C 199. 26). 

Besides the argument of the boy that "nearly all the other 
boys in town smoke," there are grown people, who ought to know 
better, who will encourage and flatter young men to drink and smoke 
by telling them if they do that they will be "men." 

One time at a wedding, where liquor and cigars were freely 
distributed among the guests, as is the custom at some weddings, 
two young men, yet in their teens, and about the same age, had a 



589 

tray of liquor and a box of cigars passed to them by one of .the 
helpers. One young man helped himself to both liquor and cigars, 
and the other refused both. Then the man who passed them 
around said to the young man who refused to touch either liquor 
or tobacco: 

"You will never be a man unless you drink and smoke. See 
Mr. — is going to be a man one day for he does not refuse to 
drink and smoke." 

Well, in after years this same young man, who was "going to 
be a man one day," did up this very spokesman for several 
thousand dollars. The other young man has probably not yet 
become a "man," for he has not yet done up any one, so far as it 
is known, and I am informed he is still a total abstainer from 
liquor and tobacco. Now, which of the two, in your opinion, is 
the more of a "man"? a. f. y. 

I have already stated that the use of tobacco is a filthy habit. 
Here is the verdict of one who is a user of tobacco and this is 
what he says about it: 

"An edict has gone out from the general offices of the — rail- 
road forbidding the use of tobacco in the offices along the lines. 
It is a good order. We use tobacco and are ashamed of it. Take 
a lot of men in the same room who use tobacco, and the result is 
disgusting. Tobacco is one of the worst of American habits; par- 
ticularly chewing. There are tobacco chewers who do not recognize 
the rights of others, and who do not realize how disgusting they 
are. Lately when we cannot resist the temptation to chew, [Where 
is your will-power you boasted of when you began to use tobacco, 
and when some one told you not to use it for a day may come 
when you would like to give up its use when you saw the harm it 
was doing you, but that you could not do so then, and you said 
you could quit when you wanted to, just as the drunkard, when he 
was a moderate drinker, said he could stop drinking when he saw 
it was going to do him harm?] we go off and chew in secret. 
Boys who have never learned the habit, should look around them, 
and count the men who are trying to quit. Tobacco chewing is 
not a crime, but it is a disgusting habit" (Daily paper). [Yet 
expect refined wives to submit to "Shrewsberry clock" kisses from 
husbands with such habits.] 

Here is the chance for the defender of the use of tobacco to 



590 

say ^hat railroad employees are, by such edicts against the use of 
tobacco, compelled to barter their "personal liberty" if they wish 
to continue in the employ of such a railroad. But are they? Have 
others no rights? Read what an official of a railroad company has 
to say in regard to the rule of prohibiting the use of tobacco by 
the men while on dutj', and then see if it is not a just rule even 
though it should be an infringement of the "personal liberty" of 
the men. 

"Regarding the new rule prohibiting the use of tobacco, an 
official of the company said: 'Cleanliness and neatness are im- 
portant factors in the railroading of today, and these considerations 
alone are sufficient warrant for a prohibition of the use of tobacco 
by employees when on duty. We desire that employees shall not 
make our property disgusting to travelers by the use of tobacco, 
and themselves steeped with tobacco poison while on duty' " (Daily 
paper). 

There is nothing in that, then, that is an encroachment on 
"personal liberty" is there, when such a rule inures to the good of 
others? Why then should a regulation of the liquor traffic, along 
the lines suggested in this book, be an encroachment on the "i)er- 
sonal liberty" of others, if such a regulation of the liquor traffic 
makes it so disreputable to be seen drinking that it keeps many 
from drinking, and the refraining from drinking inures to the good 
of a father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children? Have those 
no rights as well as the one who wants to drink, and who thereby 
would spend his time and money for things which should go to 
those to whom he is related by the ties of kindred? 

"Forty per cent, of the distress among the poor, said a recent 
official report, is due to drunkenness" (200:4). 

Socialism would say it was due to the unequal distribution of 
wealth caused by the agencies of production being owned by private 
owners instead of government ownership of them. But will ^a 
drunkard be justly and honestly entitled to the products produced 
by agencies, owned by the government if he squanders his time 
and money in drinking in the saloon? 

"It is a sorry admission to make, that to bring the rest of the 
neighborhood up to the level of the saloon would be one way of 
squelching it; but it is so. Whenever the tenements thicken, it 
multiplies. Upon the direst poverty of their crowds it grows fat 



591 

and prosperous, levying upon it a tax heavier than all the rest of 
its grievous burdens combined. * * * All the evil the saloon 
does in breeding poverty and in corrupting politics, all the suffer- 
ing it brings into the lives of its innocent victims, the wives and 
children of drunkards it sends forth to curse the community, its 
fostering of crime and its shielding of criminals — it is all as nothing 
to this, its worst offense. [Selling liquor to minors] * * * Por 
the corruption of the child there is no restitution. * * * It saps 
the very vi'tals of society; undermines its strongest defences, and 
delivers them over to the enemy. (200: 211, 215). 

That much then against liquor and tobacco. They are costly, 
dangerous, disgusting, filthy, and useless habits, are they not? a, f. y. 



CHAPTER XXV I 



Socialism, Single Tax, Anarchy — Continued. 

"Whatever may be said for the institution of private property 
in land, it is therefore plain that it cannot be defended on the 
score of justice. The equal right of all men to the use of land is 
as clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right pro- 
claimed by the fact of their existence" (196:303), 

Have we not all as equal a right to health as we have to air? 
If so, are all equally healthy? If not, why not? If we are sick, 
diseased, or physically afflicted is it not either the result of our 
own carelessness, thoughtlessness, and lack of exercising common 
sense in eating, drinking, dressing, and living or else an inherit- 
ance from our ancestors? If such is the case with regard to health 
which is as free as the air, and "is a right proclaimed by the fact 
of existence" — a case of reaping what we, or others, sow — then may 
not the equal right to the use of land be bartered away in the same 
way, by ourselves or by our ancestors? It is simply a reaping of 
what we, or our ancestors, sowed, if we have no equal right with 
others to the use of certain lands. 

I know of men who married widows who owned land, and the 
men, through prodigality, and politics — standing on street comers 
smoking cigars and telling how the country should be governed 
and be saved, but who left their hay and crops out in the field to 
go to ruin through rain, when they could have saved them by stay- 
ing at home and stacking them — lost their right to the lands their 
wives owned when they married them. Now what was the fault 
there? Was it economic conditions or private ownership of others 
in land, that caused these men to lose the land through prodi- 
gality? 

They had the lands in their possession once. Then why did 
they barter away their rights to them? No one forced them to 
sell. They simply did not care very much to work so they sold 
the lands and when they got the money in their hands it was soon 
squandered, leaving them and their posterity no rights to land nor 



593 

with money. Was that not reaping what they sowed as much so 
as this is reaping what one sows? 

"The headache of the morning is the reaction from the de- 
bauch from the night" (176:239)? And no doubt, the debauch 
caused the squandering of money, too. 

"In the great cities, where land is so valuable that it is: 
measured by the foot, you will find the extremes of poverty and of 
luxury. And this disparity in condition between the two extremes 
of the social scale may always be measured by the price of land. 
* * * The great cause of inequality in the distribution of wealth 
is inequality in the ownership of land" (176:260, 266). 

Is not the great cause of the "inequality in the distribution 
of wealth," as already pointed out, the prodigality on the part of 
those, or their ancestors, who have little or nothing, and the thrift 
on the part of those, or their ancestors, who have much and more 
than enough? What had the price of land in Chicago to do with 
the young man who received twenty dollars more a month, — and 
who had virtually nothing at the end of five years of labor, — than 
another young man who saved one thousand dollars in three years? 
What did the price of land in a city have to do with those who 
spent all their earnings saying, "I am going to enjoy myself while 
I am young," or "I am not going to have the lawyers fight over 
my will," or in ten dollar "blows" in bawdy houses, or if "we saved 
our money and became rich who would you have to work for you"? 
Can a person have money or land at the end of years of squander- 
ing all that one earns as one goes along? 

It is these mistaken theories, as to the cause of the inequality 
in the distribution of wealth, of some agitators who want to pose 
as the friends and champions of the laborers and the poor, that cre- 
ates discontentment among the majority of the thriftless poor who 
have little or nothing, and which makes Socialists, Single Taxers, 
and Anarchists of many. They are just as mistaken in their theo- 
ries as to the cause of the inequality in the distribution of wealth 
as orthodoxy is when it says that the devil — which I have already 
proven does not exist — is the cause of all our woes, sins and dis- 
eases. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

"Inasmuch as the taxation of rent, or land values, must neces- 
sarily be increased just as we abolish other taxes, we may put the 



594 

proposition into practical form by proposing — Jo abolish all taxa- 
tion save that upon land values'''' (176:365). 

According to single tax, then, the man who puts ten thousand 
dollars into a mercantile business need pay no taxes but the man 
who puts ten thousand dollars in a farm must pay taxes. Well, I 
do not suppose the farmers then will be anxiously clamoring for 
single tax. 

"It is sufficiently evident that with regard to production, the tax 
upon the value of land is the best tax that could be imposed. Tax 
manufactures, and the effect is to check manufacturing; tax improve- 
ments, and the effect is to lessen improvement; tax commerce, and 
the effect is to prevent exchange; tax capital, and the effect is to 
drive it away. But the whole value of land may be taken in taxa- 
tion, and the only effect will be to stimulate industry, to open new 
opportunities to capital, [That was saved by those who said, "I am 
going to enjoy myself while I am young," and "I am not going to 
have the lawyers fight over my will." It surely will "open new 
opportunities" to such by exempting capital from taxation.] and to 
increase the production of wealth" (176:371). 

And will not the taking of the whole value in laiid by taxation 
drive the people off' the farms? What is it that makes land values 
unless it is labor? What was the land in the United States worth 
before it was tilled? And what is tilling but labor? And will you 
tax labor on land and exemi^t from taxation all other labor be it iDut 
into the manufacture of goods or into the putting up of buildings 
— iniprovementsf Would not the tax in land values have to come 
from the products of the land which labor produced? Will the land 
produce without labor, be it city or farm land? 

"The monopolist of agricultural land would be taxed as much 
as though his land were covered with houses and bams, with crops 
and with stock. The owner of a vacant city lot would have to pay 
as much for the privilege of keeping other people off of it, until 
he wanted to use it, as his neighbor who has a fine house upon his 
lot. It would cost as much to keep a row of tumble-down shanties 
upon valuable land as though it were covered with a grand hotel 
or a pile of great warehouses filled with costly goods" (176:393). 

Here it may be seen that our theory of Single Tax would 
oblige every farmer and every city land-owner to improve their pos- 
sessions whether able to do so or not. It would tax the same 



595 

amount the man who owned a valuable lot but who could build on 
it only an ordinary residence building, on account of limited means, 
that would rent, we will say, for fifty dollars a month, as it would 
tax the man who built a "grand hotel," because he had the means 
to build it, and which rented for five hundred dollars a month. 
Would that be justice? 

Supposing every valuable city lot of equal value were equally 
improved where would the tenants come from to occupy them? 
The fact that some capitalist lets his valuable city lot remain un- 
improved does that not give another, who has an improved lot, more 
returns on his investment? And does not the unimproved lot owner 
have to pay taxes on his lot? Oh, but it will be said that he does 
not pay in proportion to its value compared with the value of the 
improved lot adjoining. In that case it is the assessor's fault. 

Let us take for an illustration two i^ieces of land, side by side, 
of equal value. One has imiDrovemeuts on it that cost, we will say, 
ten thousand dollars, and that parcel of improved real estate is 
taxed on a basis of a valuation of twenty thousand dollars. The 
other is taxed on a basis of a valuation of five thousand dollars. 
Now would there be anything unjust in taxing the unimproved land 
on a basis of a valuation of ten thousand dollars, which his unim- 
proved land must be worth if the land adjoining of equal value 
with ten thousand dollar improvements is taxed on a basis of a val- 
uation of twenty thousand dollars? If not unjust, and it would not 
be unjust to do so, then if the land owner objected would he not 
have the right to improve it or sell it to some one who would? 

If then owners of valuable lands, covered with "a row of tum- 
ble-down shanties," could afford to pay the just taxes without im- 
proving their j^roperties so as to bring in greater returns, why then 
the owners of improved land, many of whom have only that as a 
revenue producer in their old age of inability to work any more, 
would receive better returns. Is that not so? And as it is are 
there not already many vacant store, residence, and other buildings 
in large cities which are not "booming"? Would you build more to 
have more vacant? There are two sides to the question and I do 
not see how Single Tax can straddle them both. 

To say that by building more would reduce rents for the poor 
is an argument not tenable, especially when Single Tax would 
exempt capital from taxation, because to tax capital "is to drive it 



596 

away" (176:371). I know of cases where men, who own much 
rental property, in fast growing cities, and who also loan money 
who would rather loan money than have it invested in rental 
property, because, they say, it brings better returns. If then more 
building would reduce rents and moneyed men will not build more 
because they can get better returns by loaning their money, then 
who is going to do the building? Are those going to do it who 
said "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," etc., etc., etc., 
and who have nothing? Could such get laborers and mechanics to 
work on their buildings, if the land and material were furnished 
on time, and they had no money with which to pay them from 
one dollar and a half to four dollars a day, as some mechanics get? 

"We should satisfy the law of justice, we should meet all 
economic requirements, by at one stroke abolishing all private 
titles, [How far removed from anarchy is that?] declaring all land 
public property, and letting it out to the highest bidders in lots 
to suit" (176:362). 

Will the bidders have to pay down cash when they bid on 
lots to suit? If 'so, how could those bid who had no money, 
having spent it all, as already mentioned a number of times? Of 
what advantage would "declaring all land public property, and 
letting it out to the highest bidders in lots to suit" be to such? 
It may be seen then that the remedy for the inequality in the 
distribution of wealth would not lie in making "all land public 
property." 

There is one more theory of Single Tax to which I would 
like to call attention and that is to "tax capital, and the effect is 
to drive it away." Would the exemption of capital from taxation 
be just? Supposing two men work side by side until they become 
too old to work any longer and each one has saved ten thousand 
dollars. One buys a farm for ten thousand dollars, and being too 
old to work it himself rents it out. Now it takes a good renter 
and favorable seasons for crops for him to pay six hundred dollars 
a year rent, which would be six per cent, gross income. Out of 
that the owner of the farm must pay insurance on the buildings 
on the place. Then there is wear and tear on the improvements. 
A storm may blow down a wind-mill, or a chimney, or hail may 
break window panes, (probably destroy enough of the renters crops 
also so he will have to make him an allowance for poor crops,) 



597 

this or that needs repairing or painting, etc., and by the time that 
is all reckoned in and the taxes paid he will do well if he has 
five per cent, net annually on his investment. The other man 
loans his money on mortgages at six per cent. He has no wear 
or tear on them. No storms or hail to damage them. Requires 
no insurance, etc. Now, would it be doing justice to the man who 
invested his money in land that, after having paid taxes on it, 
nets him five per cent, while the man who has his money invested 
in six per cent mortgages is exempted from paying taxes? Why 
should one man have but five per cent, net on his investment because 
he invested his money in land while the other has six per cent, 
net on his investment because he loaned his money on mortgages? 

By exempting from taxation the mortgages of the ten thousand 
dollar capitalist is not thereby the hundred thousand dollar, or the 
millionaire capitalists' mortgages exempted from taxation likewise? 
Then why should 'not the hundred or more thousand dollar capital- 
ists pay their just share of taxes as well as the poorer land owner 
or the poorer owner of a house and lot who pay their just share 
of taxes? 

Just think of how many rich capitalists thereby escape paying 
their just share of taxes by not taxing mortgages, while the poor 
laboring man who owns a home or the poor farmer who owns a 
few or more acres of land must pay his just share of taxes? 

But it will be said that to tax mortgages would be double 
taxation. Why should it be? Supposing the man, of my illustra- 
tion, loaned his ten thousand dollars in four equal parts of twenty- 
five hundred dollars each on four ten thousand dollar farms, and 
the farms were taxed on a basis of a valuation of ten thousand dol- 
lars, less the twenty-five hundred dollar mortgages, would that then 
be double taxation if the holder of the mortgages was taxed for 
his mortgages? 

^ But it will be said that as mortgages are listed as personal 
property the money loaned would pay double if he were taxed 
where he lived and in another place or state in which the money 
is loaned. That could be remedied easily by classing mortgages 
with deeds, which they are in reality, and taxing them where they 
are recorded. But it will be said that to tax mortgages would only 
force the interest up to a higher rate. Why should it? Cannot 
the people pass laws that will guarantee the investor in city or- 



598 

country real estate — land— as great a net income on their invest- 
ments as they would by allowing the investor in mortgages now 
more than those get who invest in improved real estate? 

If farms will return only a gross income of, say six per cent, 
out of which the taxes and other incidentals must be paid, would 
it be unjust to pass laws that would allow money loaners only a 
gross income at the same per cent as that of the farms, and make 
them pay their just share of taxes? And would such a law not be 
constitutional because it would be based on justice? If our Consti- 
tution cannot rest on a basis of equal justice for the poor house and 
lot, and the poor farm, owners, and the rich capitalist then let us 
amend it or draw up another wherein Grod is remembered, and 
justice is done to all. 

"It is difficult for small farmers and homestead owners to get 
over the idea that to put all taxes on the value ,of land would be 
to unduly tax them. It is difficult for both classes to get over that 
idea that to exempt capital from taxation would be to make the 
rich richer and the poor poorer" (176:366). 

Well, to tax the poor man who owns a ten thousand dollar 
farm with a twenty-five hundred dollar mortgage on it, owned by a 
hundred thousand dollar or millionaire capitalist who is exempt 
from taxation, might easily lead one to be unable to get over the 
idea that that would not "make the rich richer and the poor poorer." 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

We have now seen some of the theories and propositions of 
Socialism and Single Tax and will let you a. f. y. whether or not 
economic conditions or land values are the great causes of the in- 
equal distribution of wealth such as there is now between the pau- 
per and the millionaire, or whether or not my theory, that is, the 
prodigality and thriftlessness, in nine cases out of ten, of the poor 
themselves or their ancestors for one or more generations back, and 
the thrift and the taking advantage of opportunities because they 
had the means with which to do so, of themselves or their ances- 
tors for one or more generations back, is the great cause for the 
unequal distribution of wealth? 

If we or our ancestors have lived much on the principle of 
"I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," etc. etc. etc., and 
have thereby become without means with which to take advantage 
of an opportunity, of which a noted person says: 



599 

"I knock unbidden once at every gate! * * * and I return 
no more!" (197:97), then we must suffer the consequences, if for 
failure to take advantage of the opportunity we miss much of the 
pleasures and comforts of life. 

There has just come into my hands some Socialist literature 
from which I will quote before closing this chapter, and according 
to some of it I do not see how Socialism will ever succeed unless 
it makes every one of equal mind, tastes, desires, etc. 

"The Socialist ideal contemplates the complete ending of the 
profit system, on the ground that it is robbery from first to last, 
* * * and the giving to each man his full product." (201:8). 

Now, what is meant by profit? Does it mean that a manu- 
facturer should pay his employees, his rent, his taxes, etc., out of 
his business in which there is no profit to be taken? Or does it 
mean to distribute among his employees all that is made over and 
above those expenses and what it costs him and his family to live? 
If so, and the manufacturer has no right to anything above that 
then what right has the laborer to more than to a living?. When 
one saved one thousand dollars in three years, out of one's salary, 
that was over and above what one needed for a living, was that not 
a profit which one shared? Well then if the profit system were 
ended, what right would one have had to the one thousand dollars 
aved? Will Socialism limit profit only to the acquiring of means 
with which to supply one's needs? If so, how about the young 
man's needs which cannot be satisfied with a salary of twenty dol- 
lars more a month than than the one received who satisfied his 
needs and saved one thousand dollars in three years at a salary of 
twenty dollars less a month than the one received whose needs 
still unsatisfied (for he borrowed money) at that twenty dollars a 
month more salary? 

As already stated, will Socialism make us all of equal mind, 
tastes, desires, etc.? Until it does that how can it end profit taking? 
If one man spends twenty dollars a month more than another earns 
who saves one thousand dollars in three years, is the employer of 
that man to give him, at the end of that time, one thousand dol- 
lars gratuitously — "his full product"— because at twenty dollars more 
a month he has nothing at the end of three years of labor? 

Is that not another false, impossible, and discontentment breed- 
ing ideal or theory of the Socialist, the ideal which "contemplates 



600 

the complete ending of the profit system, on the ground that it is 
robbery from first to last, * * * and the giving to each man 
his full product" (201:8)? a. f. y. 

Socialism says "it would solve the temperance problem by mak- 
ing it possible for the working classes to have nice homes so that 
the saloon would be eradicated" (57: April 6, 1903). 

If "nice homes" were a j)reventive of a man taking to drinking 
why then does it not restrain a well-to-do farmer, who has a "nice 
home," and also a nice family, from becoming a drinker and a sup- 
porter, — instead of an eradicator, — of the saloon? I know of such 
cases. Or why does it not restrain one in the city, under like cir- 
cumstances, who takes to drinking because of the taste and desire 
for liquor, which was acquired through drinking the "social glass" 
or for friendships'. sake? That then is another argument of Social- 
ism that is without weight, is it not? a. f. y. 

"Private housekeeping is also a great source of waste. In 100 
families there are 100 cook stoves, 100 pantries, 200 wash tubs and 
wringers, [The making of which gave employnlent to some. J 300 
separate meals to cook every day, 300 dish washings, 100 tired 
wives, * * * and 100 ill-tempered husbands who wonder what 
fool it was that said: 'There's no place like home'" (202:45). 

Edward Bellamy, in his book, Looking Backward^ also seems 
to favor co-operation in housekeeping, or rather in living in great 
central apartment houses where one need but touch certain buttons 
for anything one wants from a meal to hearing, lying in bed in 
one's room, a non-profit taking grand opera. But is not the extra 
cost of private house-keeping better for the sanctity of the home 
and the family than is the convenience of living in hotels or in 
large central apartment boarding houses? 

I have lived in hotels and boarding houses and saw what effect 
it had on the married women who had nothing to look after but 
their own personal conveniences. They were by no means as satis- 
fied and contented as were some "tired wives" who did private 
house-keeping which occupied some of their mind and time. They 
often had the "blues," for want of some useful occupation, no 
doubt, and they also spent more time in the company of men not 
their husbands than what might be considered strictly proper, so 
that when I saw that I said to myself that if I ever got married 
I would not want to live permanently in an hotel or a large apart- 



601 

• 

tnent boarding house if I could help it. And is not the move- 
ment towards public, as against private, living, becoming one of 
the modern day things which is deplored by those who uphold the 
sacredness of marriage and the family. 

But supposing that in place of where there are now 100 
private cook stoves, and "100 tired wives," who do the cooking for 
their own families, there was but one large public or central stove 
or range, which of the 100 wives would do the cooking for the 
other 99? (They could not all cook at once, for it is said that too 
many cooks at one stove spoil the broth.) Would each take turn 
about at it, cooking, say, three or four times a year? How could 
they cook well with so little practice? Supposing, however, that 
one does the cooking what would the other 99 do? Would they 
do something, that would be less hard labor than cooking in a hot 
kitchen, over a hot stove or range? If they did, and the cook 
should strilce against such an unequal distribution of hard labor, 
then what? 

Right here is where Socialism is inconsistent with itself, is it 
not? First it would have co-operation, and now that private house- 
keeping is virtually co-operation, — 100 wives cooking on 100 stoves, 
therefore each- wife doing an equal share of labor, — it says it is a 
"great source of waste" to do that. It seems Socialism does not 
know what it does want, excepting that "the age of business 
[Labor.] will come to an end, and the age of pleasure will begin" 
(202:106). (It seems to be a case of eating cake — "enjoying myself 
while I am young," etc., etc., and still have cake, too, "age of 
pleasure," — when the cake is all gone.) 

As to the people owning the public service companies I have 
no view on that theory, excepting that I believe it would not turn 
out so advantageously as is generally supposed by Socialists that 
it would. They refer us to the postoflBce, for instance, but were it 
not for the appropriations made by Congress for it it could not be 
carried on as it is. And if more appropriations had to be made 
for other utilities that are of benefit to the public, in order to 
carry them on, then where would the revenue come from? Sup- 
posing one of the planks (No. 5.) in the platform of Socialism 
were made a law, that of "The education of all children up to the 
age of eighteen years, and state and municipal aid for books, cloth- 
ing and food" (196:111, June, 1902), and taxes would have to be 



602 

levied for those purposes — "books, clothing and food" — for all up to 
the age of eighteen years, do you not suppose that would require 
a large sum? And especially so if all under the age of eighteen 
wanted to dress in the latest styles and wanted to be clothed in 
"up-to-date" wearing apparel — for to deny them that privilege would 
be as much an encroachment on "personal liberty" as it would be 
to compel the young man, who drinks, to drink in a conspicuously 
located and unscreened saloon — and wanted lampreys for dinner on 
Fridays? 

I do not think that there would be very much danger then, 
among Socialists, of "race suicide," if the State had to furnish 
those things to their children until the children attained the age 
of eighteen years. Do you not think so? And do you not think 
that such a theory, if carried out in practice, would place a 
premium on profligacy and a discount on industry and thrift? For 
who would want to work to produce that on which to pay taxes, as 
revenues in "aid for books, clothing and food" for the children of 
those who said "I am going to enjoy myself while I am young," 
or "I am not going to have the lawyers fight over my will," etc., 
etc.? 

I will admit that if the railroads, for instance, were owned by 
the government they could not then discriminate against one city, 
or person, or corporation in favor of another city, person, or cor- 
poration, thereby building up the one and destroying the other, 
but beyond that I do not see how it will help any one otherwise. 
One would have to pay a certain amount for transportation anyway 
in order to raise the revenue with which to pay those who operated 
them. And those operating the railroads, under Socialism, would 
certainly not want to limit all men's wages to that low level of the 
one who can live on the least — and for any one to have anything 
over and above that which one needs would be "profit taking," 
which is "robbery [Of the government owning the railroads.] from 
first to the last" — because he has but ordinary or common tastes, 
etc., while others might have tastes, desires, etc,, that are different: 
as for instance, the difference between the tastes, desires, etc., of 
the one who spends all of his twenty dollars more a month salary 
than another receives, and the one who, on twenty dollars less a 
month salary, saves one thousand dollars in three years. Therefore 



603 

the cost of transportation could not be materially redeemed from 
that which it is now. 

It may be seen then that it might be of doubtful advantage, 
after all. to put all public service companies under governmental 
control. But be that as it may, however, it would probably not 
hurt to give that kind of railroading a trial. But how is the gov- 
ernment to obtain control of the railroads? It certainly would 
be unjust to the majority of the holders of railroad securities to 
confiscate the railroads, for many of them are persons of only ordi- 
nary means, and to purchase them where would the government get 
the money with which to do that? If it is said that non-interest 
bearing bonds could be given, then where is the money to come 
from to pay the bonds when they become due? If it is said out 
of the revenue derived from the operating of the railroads then 
would they not have to be operated on a profit making basis? 
And if so, how does that agree with the ideal contemplated by the 
Socialist who would make a "complete ending of the profit system," 
because it is a "robbery from first to last." and who would give "to 
each man his full [salary] product" — profit, in operating the rail- 
roads? 

Is it not about becoming apparent to you that the key to the 
inequal distribution of wealth and to the amelioration of the con- 
ditions of mankind lies within the individual and not in economic 
conditions? 

Make the individual, — a unit of society, — right, and then the 
conditions of society — which is an aggregate of units — will be right. 
Teach and train the individual to practice self-denial in youth 
thereby keeping the desires down to as low a number as possible, 
and the fewer desires there are the fewer there will be to satisfy 
and the less money will it require then to satisfy them. Practice 
by foregoing present enjoyments to avoid the risk of future want 
and suffering. That applies not to the men only but also to some 
women. 

It is said that "the love of dress ruins as many, perhaps, as the 
abuse of drink." (203:51), and that "Fashion is essentially the 
feminine folly that offsets the coarser physical indulgences and sports 
of men. Women spend as much time, money and energy in satis- 
fying their aesthetic tastes, and in the effort to be beautiful, as men 
do in the gratification of their coarse physical appetites and pas- 



604 

sions. Where the one finds pleasure in the adornment of the body 
and the decoration of her house, the other seeks his satisfaction in 
the vices of gluttony, drunkenness, gaming and in sporting gener- 
ally." (179:277). 

Do you hear that, you ladies? The last quotation is from one 
of your own sex. 

One time the wife of one of the wealthiest men in a certain 
city went into a millinery store to buy a hat. The clerk who went 
to wait on her knew of her wealth, and, not to offend her by 
showing her something not fine and expensive, began showing her 
some rather expensive hats. The customer, on being told the prices 
of a few hats, said that they were too expensive for her, that a hat 
for about seven dollars was good enough for her. The clerk told 
her that as working girls paid as much as twenty dollars for hats, 
in the same store, she did not want to offend her by not at first 
showing her the best they had. Think of it, working girls paying 
as much as twenty dollars for hats, while a well-to-do wife says 
one for seven dollars is good enough for her! 

Supposing now that these girls with a desire for wearing 
twenty dollar hats should marry young men of like extravagant 
desires, and who receive salaries ranging from forty to seventy-five 
dollars a month, and neither of them having saved anything before 
they were married — although it seems that one who spends twenty 
dollars for a hat ought to be able, by practicing a little self-denial, 
to save something — sickness or some other misfortune should come 
over one or the other of them would they not soon have to forego 
the gratification of some of the desires they had cultivated, by not 
practicing a little self-denial in time, and which they once gratified? 
And would not such a forced want of gratification cause them to 
feel dissatisfied and probably also a sting of humility and suffer- 
ing? In that case where did the fault lie? Was it in the private 
ownership of the implements of production and of land by others, 
or was it in their lack of prudence and of self-denial in spending 
everything they earned before they were married? a. f. y. 

Of course all girls are not so extravagant as to pay twenty 
dollars for hats, and this is borne out by the statement of bankers. 

"Bankers say that the real money savers * * * are the 
women who earn their own living; that if it were known what 
little money men with families have saved up, there would be 



605 

considerable surprise. In a great many instances, girls working 
down town have saved twice as much as their brothers whose 
wages are twice as large" (Daily paper). 

That is not to be wondered at is it when young men spend 
their money in the different ways already mentioned in this book? 

It is said that "As a class capitalists are self-denying. They 
do not spend their money riotously as do the poor" (204:18, May, 
1902). 

Is this not a fact according to the above incident where a 
rich woman buys a hat for seven dollars and the poor working 
girls — if they were not poor they would not work outside of their 
homes unless there were so many girls that there would not be 
enough work for all at home— buy hats for twenty dollars. 

I will give a few maxims of Benjamin Franklin and if they 
had been taken seriously by all, the conditions would undoubtedly 
be different from those which exist today in this country of boun- 
tiful resources. 

"What maintains one vice would bring up two children. Silks 
and satins, scarlet and velvets, put out the kitchen fire. * * * 
It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that 
follow it. * * * Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will 
learn in no other" (162:9-12, Vol. 2). 

Does not observation and experience prove that he was about 
right? Will Socialism and Single Tax make all men and women 
of a "common denomination," that is, prudent, economical and self- 
denying? If not, then the theories of Socialism and Single Tax 
will be no panacea for the cure of the so-called ills of human 
society or social disorder, and I believe that the sooner we will 
awaken to that fact the better will it be for the peace of our mind, 
and for the safety of the individual and for society. 

Socialism and Single Tax would, from what I have gleaned 
from its literature, "Deprive ambition of its incentive, industry of 
its stimulus, excellence of its supremacy, and the character of its 
reward" (197:188), were their theories and ideals carried out. To 
no other conclusion could I arrive than that. 

In the next chapter I will point out a few things which I be- 
lieve are causes more or less of anarchy. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



Socialism, Single Tax, Anarchy— Concluded. 

There is no question that Anarchy was bom of oppressions of 
one kind or another, and one of these is, undoubtedly, burdensome 
taxation required to maintain expensive royalty and large standing 
armies and navies. When we look at what it costs for those things 
it is hardly to be wondered at that people should complain of the 
burdens of taxation. 

Here is what it costs. 

"Royal Salaries— Kings, queens and other sovereigns usually re- 
ceive annual moneys under the term civil list. The emperor of 
Austro-Hungary has an annual grant of $3,875,000-, the king of Ba- 
varia, $1,412,000; the king of Belgium, $660,000; the king of Den- 
mark, $227,775; the crown prince of Denmark, $33,330; the king of 
Greece, $260,000, including $20,000 a year each from Great Britain, 
France and Russia; the king of Italy, $2,858,000, * * * the king 
of Norway and Sweden, $575,525; the king of Portugal, $63-1,440; 
the king of Prussia, $3,852,770; also a vast amount of private prop- 
erty, castles, forests and estates out of which the court expenditure 
and royal family are paid; * * * the king of Saxony, $735,000; 

* * * the king of Spain, $1,400,000, besides $600,000 for family; 
the king of Wurtemberg, $449,050" (57: Mar. 2, 1901). 

That much for royalty already crowned. Here is what un- 
crowned royalty costs, in one case: 

"From the moment of his birth the Prince of — has been 
splendidly rich. He was born with $300,000 a year in his pocket, 
and from that day to this the Duchy of — has yielded him that 
magnificent sum * * * The Prince married, and (the govern- 
ment) gave him * * * a wedding present of $200,000 a year. 
That too has come to him regularly * * * year in and year out. 

* * * The prince has been relieved of the anxieties of a father 
for the financial welfare of his children by a special grant of $180,- 
000 a year * * * So that the public income of the prince is 
$680,000 a year" (Daily Paper, 1900). 



607^ 
Socialism, in the face of a special grant of $180000 for the 

/= tS^heTitt-^rfhiirn — r:;etf 

But the question will be asked, How can such an extreme of 
Royal y recew.ng hundreds of thousands and millions o do lai 

b r?mediedr^r' '"' T"''""'' ^' ^""''^'"^ =' ">« ""-er nd 
be remedied? It can be done easily with justice and without the 

shedding of one drop of blood. Let the people say to Royalty 

Tha as we are poor we feel the heavy burden put upon us t 

taxation for the support of crowned Royalty let aloneThe n! 

crowned Royalty, we will allow you annually tiie urn that tpdd 

the President of one of the leading repnbHcs of the world 'and 

which has -Nothing to do with his brothers and his sisters and his 

cousins and his auntq " C9n'^.997\ „ i •£ ° oisibih dna ms 

that w],v ihT V ^^^^^■^^^^' ^''^ if y"^i are not satisfied with 

our th'oneTncr" T ''^ ^""^'^^^ ""' '"''^^'^^ - abdicating 

Wonld fl I ^ ^'"* '"'"" °"^ °^ ^t ^^'^° ^^^"^^ be satisfied 

such Vthr ^">'^^-l^-i-t, unreasonable, or anarchistic if 

ct/xo dIbTi? T"'-?' ^ P^-^^"^^ ^^ taxburdened sub- 
jects:^ ^o doubt Royalty might think so, but what is Royaltv anv 
way that people should be afraid to demand justice of them' 'Read 
1> story and it will tell you how kings came to have "divin" rights '' 
-luch, If questioned, would be treason and rebellion. ^ ' 

If the people would elect tax gatherers who would levy onlv 
tor a certain amount for Royalty, then what would Royalty do f 
dissatisfied with the just and reasonable amount offered them by 

Zt ti ' r^ ^T^ ^"' "^^^^"^^ - *^-- J--ts the comnlZ 
ment Thou shalt not kill," and there would, therefore be no sol 
diers to murder their fellowmen for not doing the b ddingof ex 

irgXf rid '/ '' ''''''' ^''''' ^° *^^^ '' ^-^^ be a beLr way 
tle'ln^cMst tl7'"Tr' and expensive Royalty than is that of 
.iTl ^"^'^^^i^t ^Ji« would ssassinate them. And who would not 

c r.o\;::Lv'" '^ ^^^^rr"^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^- subjects a:dX 

nationTan be « T "^-^^f' -^e, and without fear of assassi- 
iuards' '^h", . ,"; "^r V'"''"^ '"^ °^"^* have detectives and 



608 

Anarchy makes a great mistake in believing that by assassinat- 
ing rulers it will help the oppressed. It should strive to educate 
the people into the knowledge that justice can only be brought 
about by just methods and without the shedding of one drop of 
blood, rather than by force and bloodshed. 

Now as to armies and navies. If the nations who maintain 
them were barbarious and heathens there might be some excuse 
for their maintenance but what is to be said of it when nations, 
who profess to be followers of the Prince of Peace maintain bur- 
densome armies and navies? It (>nly makes a mockery of the 
teachings of Jesus Christ does it not? Is it any wonder that 
thoughtful and reflecting Liberalism and Atheism arraigns Christi- 
anity — and with good cause, too— and says: 

"The Christian nations are armed with enough deadly weapons 
to wipe the human race from the face of the earth. Sanguinary 
wars are making brutes of men, and helpless victims of women and 
children" (207:38). 

Yes, and what are so-called Christian nations doing now but 
increasing their engines of war? One nation fearing that another 
nation might encroach on territory on which it has itself its eyes. 
Kead the daily papers and see if those are not facts. Instead of 
turning spears into pruning hooks and swords into plowshares, they 
are building more cannons and warships. Now all that cost money 
does it not? And where is the money to come from unless it is 
derived from taxes levied on the people? 

If millionaires built expensive yachts and float them, or built 
marble palaces which they cannot occupy all the time, that is a 
different proposition, for that is not money taken directly from 
people as is money by taxation. If we could only get our million- 
aires to spend more money riotously, as some nations spend money 
for engines of war, it would help materially to bring about a more 
equable distribution of wealth. It would give employment to labor, 
and the money tied up in the construction of yachts, marble 
palaces, etc., would not then come into competition with the smaller 
means of other people who invest in business of different kinds 
from which they might be shut out were the money, which is tied 
up in yachts, etc., invested in it. But when it comes to spending 
money for warships, etc., it is taking money from many poor 
people, Of course, that puts money into the hands of some labor- 



609 

ing people, to build engines of war, but it is only a case of 
"robbing Peter to pay Paul" when that is done. Is it not so? 
a. f. y. 

The following is the peace footing of some nations. 

Germany, 687,383 officers and men, 132,500 horses; Russia, 
949,188 officers and men, 188,300 horses; France, 573,160 officers and 
men, 124,612 horses; Austria, 269,708 officers and men, 67,000 
horses; Great Britain, 217,007 officers and men, 29,000 horses; 
Italy, 217,652 officers and men, 62,700 horses; * * * total 2,909,- 
198 men, 605,112 horses" (38:440, May 23, 1900). 

That ought to be jaretty good evidence that the Prince of 
Peace dwells and reigns Cr") in the hearts of those Christian rulers 
and peoples, — especially so when "Little whistling bullets — our love 
messengers between nation and nation" (208:38) are used, — when 
nearly three million men and over six hundred thousand horses, 
who produce nothing except "Military life in general depraves men. 
It places them in conditions of complete idleness, i. e. absence of 
all useful work" (209:51), must be supported by debt burdened 
nations. 

"The Austrian debt, which in 1850 was but $600,000,000, reaches 
at present $1,700,000,000; the debt of Germany has grown from 
$116,000,000 in 1870 to $559,000,000; that of Italy which in 1869 
was $1,400,000,000, is now $2,583,000,000; the debt of Russia, which 
in 1853 was $400,000,000, exceeded in 1900, $3,000,000,000; France 
* * * her debt which in 1852 was a little over $1,000,000,000, 
amounts today to about $5,800,000,000" (16: Sept. 12, 1902). 

Do you wonder now, when you remember what it costs to 
support Royalty and their brothers and sisters and cousins and 
aunts; the standing army of nearly three million men and over 
six hundred thousand horses; the many war shiiDS that must be 
kept in repair, and the burdensome debts, that Anarchy and 
Nihilism should exist when so many people cry for bread in some 
of those countries today? 

I have never been in Europe, but if what is said of the con- 
ditions of the different peoples is true then, indeed, must it be a 
heart-rending sight to see so many men who were maimed and 
crippled in battle, the many widowed mothers and fatherless chil- 
dren suffering and crying for the actual necessities of life. And 



610 

yet in the midst of such destitution Royalty must have its hundreds 
of thousands and its millions of dollars annually. 

No doubt, when the day once comes, when the true religion of 
humanity, of Jesus — instead of the man-made religions as now, which 
take the letter instead of the spirit of the teachings of Jesus — will 
be infused into the hearts of His professed followers the conditions 
will then be changed, and Anarchy will begin to disintegrate. And 
such a change will be brought about without the shedding of one 
drop of blood, or without any injustice to anj , excepting probably 
to the nationally provided for appendages of Royalty who will then 
have to provide for themselves. Then the trust of nations will not 
be mainly, as it is today, in their strength or numbers and their 
military powers, but in sympathy and righteousness. Then we will 
no longer have those fellowman murdering, bone shattering, flesh 
lacerating, limb tearing, body maiming, woman agonizing, orphan 
making, property destroying, debt making, disease and hatred breed- 
ing, hell of hells — wars, which are often waged only to maintain the 
power of some insanely mad, ambitious rulers. 

And, as it seems, people never do any thinking for themselves 
— as I never did myself, in religious matters, up to my thirty-sev- 
enth year of age — they are led like innocent lambs, by their rulers, 
to slaughter and be slaughtered by their fellowmen, — brothers in 
Christ and children of God, — in order to uphold a "national pride," 
which afterwards makes them groan under a burden of debt. 

What have these imaginary lines of "national pride," the cross- 
ing of which have been the cause of so many wars, ever done for 
the majority of persons, but to make their burdens heavier? Is liv- 
ing anj' easier for them now that a war has kept Tom from being 
their ruler, because Tom wanted to invade their territory which was 
ruled by Dick? If not, then what difference does it make who 
rules? 

If rulers want to invade or encroach on one another's territory 
why then let them fight it out personally among themselves, and if 
they can settle it in no other way than by murdering, or wounding, 
or maiming and crippling one another, then let them do so, but don't 
you — their subjects — be such fools as to murder, or be murdered in 
wars, by your fellowmen simply to satisfy the mad ambitions of your 
rulers, or to uphold "national pride." 

If then, for refusing to go to war, you are given the alterna- 



611 

live of either going or be shot dead on the spot then tell the ruler 
to shoot you; that you do not intend to raise your hand against 
your fellowman to slay him, because you are a disciple of Jesus, 
who enjoined you to love your neighbor, and surely murdering him 
in war is not loving him. 

Wars have no place between Christian nations — which are truly 
Christian. Arbitration — the exercise of reason, justice, and the 
Christ-spirit ought to settle all differences and disputes between 
them. And what Pagan nation is there that Christian nations 
should be in dread or fear of that they should increase, as they are 
doing now, and maintain an expensive standing army and navy? 

Without wars we will have no more pensions to pay to those 
who served in the ^army from a few mgnths to a few years, and 
who thereb}' in some cases laid the foundation for future rheuma- 
tism and disease which in time disabled them for working, — because 
they are supposed to have "served the country" so that it entitles 
them and their families to pensions. 

I have heard some say, who became almost anarchistic in their 
aoraignment of the practice of increasing the amount expended for 
pensions the further we get away from the time the wars took place, 
that the farmer, the miner, and the mechanic "serves the country" 
as much so as does the man who enlists in the army. They said, 
What would the country do for food if the farmer did not expose 
himself in all kinds of weather and till the soil and raise food 
products; or for fuel if the miner did not expose himself to danger 
from explosions and dampness, and mined coal; or for houses for 
shelter if the mechanic did not expose himself in all kinds of 
weather and dangers to build them? They said that if one who is 
able bodied, as many are, is pensioned for having served the coun- 
try in having listed in the army, the families of the farmer, the 
miner and the mechanic, who have died or who have become crip- 
pled by rheumatism or are otherwise diseased as a result of the 
exposure they were subjected to when performing their duties, and 
are no longer able to earn the support of their families, ought to 
be i^ensioned also. 

Well, that is a matter justice will have to decide. 

To see what wars do cost in the way of pensions we will look 
at the report of the Commissioner of Pensions issued for the year 
1902. It says in part. 



612 

"The total amount paid for pensions during the fiscal year was 
$137,504,268 and the yearly cost of operating and maintaining the 
bureau and the agencies outside of the payment of pensions proper, 
aggregates $3,590,529. The pension system, says the report, since 
the beginning of the government has cost $2,992,509,019, exclusive 
of the establishment of the soldiers' homes." The report also says 
that in the 'War with Spain, $3,275,184' have been paid in j)en- 
sions (219:Sept, 29, 1902). 

When expensive armies and navies are maintained, and wars 
are waged that require such suras for pensions annually, as given 
by the report of the Commissioner of Pensions, does that look 
like the spirit of the Prinfle of Peace dwelled and reigned in the 
hearts of the rulers and the iDeojjle of such nations that require 
such things? What an awful price are we not paying for our 
blindness, foolishness, and want of sense and justice in the past 
between two classes of people both professing belief in the leader- 
ship of Jesus Christ, but which in reality is only a damnable 
mockery. 

Think of one army of soldiers with Bibles in their pockets, 
and who "before engaging in battle * * * fortify themselves 
with the consecrated Bread" (31:346), killing and slaughtering 
another army of so-called Christains! Is it any wonder then that 
there are infidels, atheists and anarchists when professed followers 
of Jesus, who enjoined His followers to love one another, murder 
and slaughter one another like a lot of savages and barbarians? 

Why, civilized heathen and pagan nations have no worse a 
bloody record than these so-called Christian nations have. And to 
add to the damnable mockery of the thing we «re told to believe 
the blasphemous doctrine that God sends wars and commands one 
nation to exterminate another or to free it from the idolatries and 
superstitutions of a certain religion, 

" 'Bishop — is the most prominent representative of the re- 
ligious world who upholds the missionary view. * * * The 
Bishop gives the argument of 'Duty' [In the Philippines.] in the 
following: * * * 'No difficulties and no anxieties can alter the 
facts or change the situation or put back the advancing movement 
of God's will, which tends to the final substitution of the civiliza- 
tion, [Such as there is in the country where they shoot down 
governors, lawyers, and have family feuds in which scores are 



613 

murdered and assassinated.] the liberty, and the religion [Should 
have said "religions," of which there are a few hundred which rest 
on one infallible Bible] of English-speaking people for the lost 
domination of the Latin races and the Latin religion. Grod has 
called the people in America to be His instruments in a movement 
perhaps even greater in its consequence than the Reformation in 
England or the liberation of Italy or the unification of Germany, 
and in the spirit of dependence on Him, with the quiet courage of 
patient faith, we must rise to the duty of the hour'" (205:194) 
and evangelize the fifty million or so of non-church going Ameri- 
cans. Oh no, it is the few millions of those who believe in the 
"Latin religion." 

If you are a Roman Catholic do you believe what the Bishop 
of a Protestant church said as given here, that "Grod has called the 
people in America to be His instruments" and should send warships 
to the antipodes to give the people there "the religion of English- 
speaking people"? Hardly. (See 1057|.) 

It sounds somewhat amusing to hear preachers, who place such 
an implicit faith in a much humanly made ^ible (if not much 
humanly made then why has the Protestant Bible only sixty-six 
books while the Catholic one has seventy-four?) as the Catholic 
does in an infallible Pojoe, tell their hearers how they love the 
Bible — so that they can jDress it to their hearts like a fellow would 
his sweetheart. That the "blessed Book" has been the evangeliza- 
tion and enlightenment of the people where it has been permitted 
to be read, and that God is going to make a great nation of Amer- 
ica to be His people to carry the light of the Gospel to the "be- 
nighted" peoples of the earth who have a so called religion which 
is only darkness, superstition and idolatry. Do you want to know 
what is one of the results of God calling America to bring the Gos- 
pel light and enlightenment to a "benighted" people? Here it is: 
"At Manila, on the principal business street where only two saloons 
were found before American occupation, there are now eighteen" 
(38:889, Oct. 31, 1900). That looks like the light of the Gospel is 
doing pretty well — for the liquor dealers. And what are the fruits 
of Bible evangelization, civilization and enlightenment in America 
at present? Where is there a nation of "benighted" people whose 
"so-called religion" is only "darkness, superstition and idolatry," that 
has, in proportion to its population, as many divorces, murders, sui- 



614 

cides, lynchings, feuds, boodlers. absconders, infidels and atheists as 
Bible enlightened America has? 

"Of the 140,000 population of the city of — , only 20,000 are 
church communicants" (The Truth Seeker, 1903). [And I suppose 
16,503 of them are girls and women.] 

Taking the foregoing into consideration, does it not seem that 
this country could stand a little Bible "evangelization" as well as 
the "benighted peoples" of the earth for whom God has raised a 
Nation that should bring them the light of the Gospel of the 
"blessed Book?" Do you not think so? a. f. y. You see I am for 
Christian Unity and that is why I tell the truth about you Prot- 
estants who like to harp on the "darkness, superstition and idolatry" 
of "benighted peoples" on the earth who are supposed to have had 
the Bible kept from them, and on the civilization, enlightenment 
and progress of Bible reading nations, and that God called this 
Nation to bring His Gospel light to the "benighted peoples "' of the 
earth, and that too, no doiibt, with modern armor plated war ships 
and with bullets, swords and wars. But do you believe that, if you 
are not a Protestant. Hardly? 

Well, then, if God did not call the people in America to wage 
a war — sent war — in the antipodes, then by what process of reason- 
ing can it be said that He ever sent a war if He is the same 
"yesterday, to-day, and forever?" All these claims, Biblical and 
otherwise, that God sent wars or commanded one nation to wage 
war against another nation are simply damnable blasphemies! And 
especially so if He had to move the hearts of rulers so that they 
would have the heart to declare a murderous, bloody, costly and 
woman-agonizing war. 

If "God speaks to the soul and enforces the message it utters" 
(40:43), then why does He not speak to the souls of would-be mad 
ambitious rulers who would enslave a nation or who would encroach 
on another's territory by invasion and war. and say to their souls 
that such a move would be unjust, uncharitable, murderous and 
infamous, and enforce the message before the rulers would declare 
and wage war or would enslave a certain race which would later 
require a war to free them? 

Is it not about becoming apparent to you that God never called 
any nation of people, be it Jewish or American, "to be His instru- 
ments" to liberate or exterminate another nation or people or to 



615 

avenge His wrath on them? And if so, do you not think it is 
about time that those nations which claim they are Grod-fearing arid 
Christian, and who are continually increasing their engines of war, 
had better throw off their masks of hypocrisy and boldly proclaim 
that they are unchristian at heart and are virtually atheists and 
anarchists in disguise and that their principle of justice is that 
'"might makes right?" And has not "might makes right" been the 
principle that has been and is ruling the leading so-called Christian 
nations to-day, which are groaning under a burden of debt and 
heavy taxation, and which is the cause as much as anything of 
Nihilism and Anarchy? 

Do away with expensive Royalty, as suggested in this book, 
and with standing armies and navies and reduce the burdensome 
taxation which is required now to maintain them and Nihilism and 
Anarchy will soon be a thing of the past. Do you not believe it? 
Well then let us practice what we preach, and be a people of One 
Church, practicing the religion of humanity which Jesus taught 
and enjoined us to know and to practice. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Marriage and Celibacy. 

'•If any one shall saj' that the marriage state is to be x^referred 
to the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better 
and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be 
united in matrimony, let him be anathema (Counc. of Trent, Sess. 
24, Can. 10)." (30:234). 

Well, one anathema more or less of the Roman Catholic 
Church will make no difference to me therefore I will just be 
"presumptuous" enoiigh to put my "ignorance" against the "wis- 
dom and learning of eighteen hundred years of the Church" and 
take issue with her on that question. If the Church means that 
to the individual virginity, or celibacy, is better and more blessed 
than matrimony then I about agree with her, but if she means 
that it is better and more blessed than matrimony in the sight of 
God, which, no doubt, is her meaning, then I do not agree with 
her. 

Supposing the first man and woman God created had been 
told by God — and if He did not tell them then He hardly did the 
square thing by them for not giving them the knowledge that 
virginity would be more pleasing to Him and more blessed to 
them in the life to come than marriage so that they could choose 
whichever they wanted to — that virginity would be more pleasing 
to Him than matrimony and they had chosen virginity, celibacy, 
and had left the world unpopulated, do you believe God would 
have been pleased with it, esi^ecially so when He enjoined them 
and all their descendants in Gen. 1:28, through the emotion of 
love, the parental instinct and the procreative passion, to "increase 
and multixjly"? Hardly. Well, then, if He would not have been 
pleased with virginity, or celibacy, in the first man and woman 
created then why should He be more pleased with it than with 
matrimony, later, if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever? 
Does He in time look with displeasure on His own work and 
design? And did He not design the male aud the female to be 
united in matrimony for a purpose — a desigxi? 



617 

When God created the lucious fruit to be man's meat would 
He be more pleased with it if man renounced the fruit and ate 
only the leaves of the tree instead of eating the fruit? If the 
pleasures of marriage on earth are less pleasing and blessed in the 
sight of God than their renunciation — virginity or celibacy — will 
He be pleased with it when we once get to heaven we enjoy "num- 
berless delights and unspeakable happiness" (7:575)? May He not 
then, in heaven, also frown on our delights and happiness -if He is 
unchangeable and He is less pleased with us because we indulge 
here the lawful pleasures — a "huge immortification" (11:195) — in- 
stead of renouncing them? Will He not probablj- ask us, when we 
get to heaven, to renounce some of the delights and happiness 
there, because He seems, according to the teachings of the Church, 
to regard it a "huge immortification" to indulge the joys and law- 
ful pleasures of this life? 

What human father would not want his child to have all the 
joys and law^ful pleasures the father could and did provide for 
whether present with the father or absent in a far country? Yet 
here we are asked to believe that to be happy and enjoy the law- 
ful pleasures of this life is not better nor so blessed in the sight 
of God as is the renunication of them. Such teachings impeaches 
God's work and design, degrades Him and makes Him an arbitary, 
tempting, frowning, and ensnaring Being, does it not? a. f. y. 

From what I have already said in this chapter do you now be- 
lieve the following is true in the sight of God? 

"The Church distinguishes four states of life: the state of mar- 
riage, of virginity, of Religion, and of the priesthood, of which the 
marriage state is lowest, [God's own institution, work and design 
"is the lowest."] and the priesthood the highest. [An invention of 
man "the highest."] The state of virginity is above the state of 
marriage and widowhood; and although these four conditions of 
life have special graces and advantages, and each is a good and 
holy state, in which by the conscientious discharge of its obliga- 
tions one may become holy and perfect, yet still one is higher 
than the other, and particularly the state of virginity is above that 
of marriage. * * * The essence of the state of virginity con- 
sists in nothing less than voluntary, lifelong continence not only 
from impure desires but also from marriage, in order to serve the good 
God [Who can let creatures of His linger in an eternal hell of 



618 

fire, suffering, agony, and woe and who can be "deaf to their cries" 
for annihilation (7:266)] with an undivided heart. * * * Noble 
and Grod-loving souls should be less found fault with if they have 
more inclination and joy in a state of virginity, and by its beauty 
are more drawn towards it than to that of marriage; and this is 
even a proof of a good taste. * * * J^ot a few of those who 
have embraced the state* of virginity have been led to do so by its 
beauty and dignity" (211:18, 19, 50, 51). 

There is no question but that there is exercised more "good 
taste, beauty, and dignity" iu choosing virginity, or celibacy, to live 
in a building "provided with gas, electricity and heated throughout 
with steam while the pantries, cuiDboards and closets would cause 
every house-wife's heart to rejoice" (Daily paper); the surroundings 
of which are "calm and beautiful" (57 — ); "the balmy air of her 
lovely convent home, nestling in the pines" (53: April 10, 1901)-, 
"on a high hill, thus enjoying a commanding position over the sur- 
rounding country" (16: Sept. 5, 1902); be "fed well" so as to "pray 
well" (11:94) the Rosary and daily "read the Office through once 
and rather quickly" (107:28); [which would be like one reading 
daily the Constitution of the United States]; out of the earthly 
bread make the "Celestial God" (51:30), then feed upon the blessed 
body" (49:217) so that the "blood of a God flows in your veins" 
(7:88); "sit supinely back taking matters easily" (28:12.), and play 
cards so as to be in practice to play so well as to carry off the 
first prizes at card parties: " — church held a progressive high five 
party last night. The first gentleman's prize was won by Father 
— " (Daily j^aper), than there is in marrying, and complying with 
the injunction of Gen. 1:28, and living in a one or two room shanty 
"nestling" in "Poor Alley," in the "balmy air" of dead rats and 
decayed vegetables, with "calm and beautiful" surroundings of 
crying babies and howding cats and dogs, "enjoying a commanding 
position" over a pot of "boiling soft-soap, deodorizing diapers and 
building cracklin' bread" (14:57, Nc'l. 1), cleaning filthy spittoons 
filled with chewed cigar stumps, tobacco juice and quids, ashes and 
burnt matches, or cleaning up the drunken husband's vomitings of 
a conglomeration of rot-g\it whiskey, stale beer, sour wine, limbur- 
ger cheese, bologna sausage and potato salad with raw onions, and 
in working in dirt, dust, and grease in scorching hot, and in biting 
cold, weather, in order to provide for a wife, a husband and family. 



619 

Yes. But the question is, Is God going to fix our position in 
heaven according to the way we have on earth exercised "good 
taste'' or not? If not, then is it not an impeachment of God's 
creation and design to say it shows "good taste" to choose virginity 
in preference to matrimony? 

To read the literature of the Jewish and the Catholic priest- 
hood — yea, even that of Christian Science, too — one would think 
that God could not and did not create and design things that are 
of "good taste" and are, therefore, "defiling" and "unclean" and car- 
nal. Is marriage and child-bearing defiling, unclean, carnal, void of 
"good taste?" To read Catholic and Christian Science literature, of 
which I have quoted some in this book, and the Bible (Lav, 12:1-5 
and Rev. 14:4) one would think so. 

It is too bad that some of these fanatical Bible, and Catholic, 
celibates, and Christian Scientists who have entered brother and 
sister relation marriages (146:59), were not present when God cre- 
ated Man, so that they might have suggested to Him that He 
would show "good taste" and a fine sense of "beauty" and "dignity" 
by creating Man so that mankind could be perpetuated without the 
sexual embrace and accouchements, if the sexual embrace with wo- 
man in lawful marriage (Apoc. 14:4) and child births (Lev. 12:2) 
are "defiling," "unclean," and "carnal minded" (146:12) things. 
That no doubt would have better suited, too, the modern day "new 
woman" who thinks and makes more over a poodle dog than over 
a baby. 

That is why I am for purging the Bible of its God-blasphem- 
ing and woman-degrading passages and throwing them on the rub- 
bish heap of the errors of the Catholic church; the absurdities of 
Christian Science; the daftnesses of Dowieism; the "silliness" of the 
Darwinian theory, and of atheistic evolution; and the anarchies of 
Socialism and Single Tax, and api:)lying to it the torch of reason, 
intellect, and common sense to consume it and scattering its ashes 
to the four M-inds. 

The Church, in attempting to exalt virginity above matrimony, 
cites Christ as an example: 

"For as our Divine Savior chose ihe most perfect state of life 
on earth for Himself, namely, the state of virginity, it is a proof that 
it is more perfect than the state of marriage" (211:21). 

The Church believes Jesus is God; if then He had married 



I 



620 

and had had an anti "race suicide" sized family what would they 
have been called? Would they have been Gods, because like begets 
like, (excepting in atheistic evolution where a lifeless Moneron may 
beget an exponent of the "highly intellectual progress") or would they 
have been God-men and God-women — half God and half man, half 
God and half woman — or what would they have been? Again, if 
Jesus was an example for all to follow in all things and all His 
followers had chosen virginity do you believe that we would be here 
today? Why, in that case our miniature spirits might yet be hov- 
ering over the about depopulated earth yearning and praying for 
some patriarch to practice bigamy (4:224), or for some Mormon 
Bishop to practice polygamy (128:210), in order that our wee little 
souls might have bodies "which are necessary to their development 
and exaltation." 

If all the followers of Jesus had chosen virginity would not 
the population of the earth have become extinct long ago, or else 
be populated with only non-Christians today? Would God be 
pleased then if such were the state of afPairs now? Hardly. And 
if not pleased if all had embraced virginity, or celibacy, then why 
be more pleased with those who embrace it than with those who 
embrace matrimony in obediance to His injunction in Gen. 1:28? 

The reason Jesus did not marry was because He foresaw the 
trials and persecutions He would have to undergo at the hands of 
the Jewish priesthood, — whose corrupted religion he assailed, making 
Himself a "heretic" in their eyes, just as I am a "regular heretic" 
in the eyes of the Catholic priesthood, — and did not want a wife 
and family on His hands to suffer with Him. Besides, it would 
interfere with his traveling about in His mission, the transporta- 
tion facilities of those days not being like they are now. It was 
for those reasons, and not because the state of virginity is more 
blessed and perfect than marriage, that He and the Apostles chose 
celibacy. After enough of conversions had been made to establish 
congregations — parishes — over which some one was to have resident 
charge, then the Apostles directed that a bishop, "the husband of 
one wife" (I. Tim. 3:2), and jDriests, "the husband of one wife" 
(Tit. 1:5, G), should be ordained, proving irrefutably my conten- 
tion why Jesus and the Apostles chose celibacy. 

The sum and substance of it is that the exaltation of virginity, 
or celibacy, above matrimony is, like many other teachings of the 



621 

Church, only another human invention, used to create a supreme 
reverence for the priesthood, which is celibate. That is why the 
Church says that "The marriage state is the lowest, and the priest- 
hood the highest" (211:18). She wants us to believe that the 
priests have conferred on them "all the heavenly powers" (66:38) 
and can, therefore, forgive sins; can go to the bedside of the sick 
and say to them Christ's words, "Arise, and walk," and — the under- 
taker moves them from the bed to the cemetery; that they can 
make the "Celestial God" out of "earthly bread" (51:30), then put 
on Christ by eating Him so that the "blood of God flows in their 
veins" (7:88) firing their hearts so with the spirit and life of 
Christ that they can "sit supinely back taking matters easily" 
(28:128), and, like the devil who has such powers that he can "find 
sins not confessed" (7:388), the priests have such "heavenly powers" 
that they could not find in my mind and heart the thought that I 
saw with the "arms of the intellect" — God-given faculties to be 
used and not to be thrown under the feet of faith, or to be made 
a "dethroned king" — that the rites and ceremonies which they 
performed over me since 1899, now four years, were only errors 
and human inventions. 

Yes, what "heavenly powers" the priest do have. Surely su- 
preme reverence is due to such celestial celibate beings when "the 
marriage state is the lowest, and the priesthood the highest" 
(211:18), and they can do all the above mentioned things. 

One argument of the Church for the exaltation of virginity, or 
celibacy, above matrimony is that in the former state one can serve 
God better "with an undivided heart" (211:16) than one can in 
matrimony, and those who are married are "solicitous for the things 
of the world," how they may please each other, and are therefore 
divided in their service to God. What does it mean to serve God? 
Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:35,36, does He not? 

When people "shut themselves up in convents and solitudes 
to make sure of heaven" (7:578) are they performing labor that 
will give them food to feed the hungry, and clothing to cover the 
naked of Matt. 25:35,36? 

Is that serving God by being so selfish as to make sure only 
of their own salvation, fleeing from the others, shutting themselves 
up in cloisters and letting the others go to that devil who tempted 
Lucifer to commit the first sin that was ever committed; perpetu- 



622 

ally adoring a wafer Grod as shown in the cut of the "Perpetual 
Adoration," on page 545 of this book, repeatedly reciting the 
Rosary, — which, as I have already proven mathematically, is a prayer 
not heard by the Blessed Virgin, because it is utterly impossible 
I for any being, excepting God Almighty, to listen to over 46,000 

petitions at once, simultaneously, every second of time from one 
end of the year to the other, — and daily to "read the Office through 
once and rather quickly" (107:28)? Do you call that serving Grod? 
a. f. y. 

As to the claim that not being married, being in the state of 
virginity, or celibacy, one is not solicitous, — which the married are 
supposed to be more or less, — for the things of this world, how to 
please a wife or a husband, and one is therefore not divided in 
serving Grod, we will see whether that is so or not. 

One time an entertainment was given for the benefit of. a 
cloister. On Sunday morning at 8:10 a. m. four Sisters went to 
the hall carrying packages from -their carriage to the hall, and re- 
maining fully twenty minutes in the hall, walking about inspecting 
and arranging the final details for the entertainment to be given 
during the week. Now, were they not "solicitous for the things 
of the world," and therefore not divided ixi serving God, when they 
went to the hall cm Sunday? a f. y. 

Here is another: 

"The annual picnic for the benefit of the Sisters of — was 
held at the grounds of St: — convent * * * yesterday [Sun- 
day] afternoon and evening. The Sisters have been rather unfor- 
tunate in having to contend with inclement weather. [No doubt 
they i^rayed for favorable weather, and the priest, who said Mass 
in their chapel, unquestionably included a petition for the same as 
one of his "intentions" of the Mass. Yet God did not seem to feel 
inclined to show "signal favors" to "His own loved sijouses" (78:56) 
who embraced virginity "in order to serve the good God with an 
undivided heart" (211: 18, 19.)] Last year they had to postpone 
their picnic on account of rain. This year the event was to have 
been on Saturday and the same thing happened. Yesterday after- 
noon's downpour again tended to mar the enjoyment. A large 
crowd was in attendance, however, and the convent halls and grounds 

(were thronged afternoon and evening. Light refreshments were 
served during the afternoon and more than five hundred persons 



k 



623 

were served with supper at twenty-five cents a plate, in the even- 
ing. * * * There was to have been a set programme of music 
and speaking, but the rain came just at the hour when it was to 
have begun. Tables and chairs were then moved into the convent 
building, for shelter, and the entertainment was continued infor- 
mally." (Daily Paper, Monday,— 1902). 

I suppose none of the Sisters were "solicitous for the things 
of this world" when they had their grounds and convent halls 
thronged on Sunday, serving meals and charging those who ate 
"twenty-five cents a iDlate." 

It is claimed that commercialism is sapping at the foundation 
of our American Sabbath, but what is to be thought of it when 
the so-called "Only True Church of Christ" has Sunday picnics and 
fairs and concerts for the pur^jose of getting one of "the things of 
the world" — money? 

"The fair for the benefit of St. — church was successfully 
opened in the basement of the church * * * on Sunday even- 
ing" (53: — ). "This evening the Young Ladies' Sodality of — 
church will give a concert, the proceeds to be used for the benefit 
of the church." (Daily Paper, Sunday — 1900.) 

I do not suppose the priests were "solicitous for the things of 
the world," in the following: 

"A grand euhre and reception in aid of the church of — will 
be held * * * Admission, 50 cents. * * * The committee 
in charge and the pastor, the Rev. — , have left nothing undone to 
make this entertainment one of the most successful in the history 
of the parish" (53: — ) — in getting one of "the things of the world" 
— money. "The Rev. — , pastor of the St. — church * * * and 
the committee in charge of the arrangements for the parish picnic 
* * * are working indefatigably to make the event one of the 
most successful [For "the things of the world," just like the mar- 
ried are solicitous, how to please a wife or a husband] and enjoy- 
able of the season." (53: — ). "The annual excursion of St. — 
parish * * * promises to excel all previous excursions * * * 
The Rev. Fathers — and — are sparing no efPort [Just like the 
happily married spare no effort] to make the event a success, and 
judging from the sale of tickets their hopes are likely to be real- 
ized. [That they are rendering undivided service to God.] There 
will be dancing [Of the "highly indecent, impure, obscene" round 



624 

dances, for which the "Bishop has been so good as to give us per- 
mission to have them" — when the money goes into the treasury of 
the church] and other features on board." (53: — ), Were the priests 
in those cases "not solicitous for the things of this world"? a. f. y. 

When a priest, who is chief celebrant in a Solemn High Mass, 
at the singing of the Credo by the choir, lays off his vestments 
and takes up the collection, — which I was told he did regularly 
whenever a collection was taken uj) in his church, I happening to 
be a chance visitor there on account of a Mission in the church, 
— was he not "solicitous for the things of this world"? There were 
plenty of men in the parish to have taken up the collections. It 
was rather a poor parish and I sujDpose the priest thought that by 
using one of those patent collection boxes, which he did, where 
eyery coin put on it can be seen before it is slid into the bottom 
by a slight tilt of the collection box, the people would contribute 
more in that way than they would otherwise. 

When chief pastors take up in the church the regular special 
collections, the ushers doing it at other times, are they then "not 
solicitous for the things of this world" — money? When priests are 
at a dance,, given in a parish hall, till after midnight — some even 
there yet at one o'clock at night the time those who attended, and 
whom I overheard say the priests were there yet having left the 
hall at that hour— are they "not solicitous for the things of this 
world"? For what other purpose than that could priests be at a 
hall at that hour of the night? Surely they would not be there — 
having taken vows of celibacy — to "have some fun, too," as the 
young priest, already mentioned in another chapter, wanted to have 
with "sweet sisteens," when he said: "I'll be darned if I will 
work here all night. I want to have some fun, too?" 

When a i^riest, on his farewell Sunday in a parish, says not a 
word about spiritual matters, but speaks only of financial matters, 
even urging his parishioners to "borrow the money" with which to 
pay their church dues, and during Mass, goes about among the 
congregation with a subscription list and talking to them, does that 
look like he was not solicitous for money and was serving God 
with an "undivided heart," because he was a celibate and could 
therefore do so, which the married are supposed cannot do, because 
they are "solcitious for the things of this world," how to please a 
wife or a husband? a. f. y. 



625 



One Sunday, after High Mass, I asked a priest to bring me 
Communion. Me said he would do so as tomorrow, Monday. When 
Monday morning came no priest came and when my people asked 
him later in the day about it he said he had forgotten all about it 
Now why did he forget about it at that particular time? It was 
no doubt, because of a Schafskopf and High Five card party which 
was to be given that Monday night for the benefit of the church 
and which was announced from the Communion railing on the 
Sunday before, the preparations of which, no doubt, so occupied 
his mind that it seems there was no room for any other thought 
hence he had to, as a natural consequence, forget his engagement 
made with me. Now does that look like, because he was not 
married, that he was "not solicitous for the things of the world " 
and that he was rendering God service with an "undivided heart'" 
when he was so absorbed with the preparations for a card party 
that made him forget all about so important a service of God as 
the administering of the Sacraments? a. f. y. 

It may be seen then that virginity, or celibacy, does not make 
one without solicitude for the things of this world, nor make one 
undivided m the service of God, if perpetually adoring a wafer 
God; reciting the Rosary, often; reading daily "The Office through 
once and rather quickly;" making out of "earthly bread" the 
Celestial God," and then "sit supinely back taking matters easily," 
can be called "serving God." 

We will now see whether or not the married state is so rosy 
and full of pleasure that to persevere faithful in it to the end of 
an earthly existence one should not receive then as great a crown 
of reward as those do who embrace virginity, or celibacy, and who 
shut themselves up in convents" (7:578), "where the atmosphere 
IS tree from worldly corruption and untainted with the woes and 
emptations of a wicked world" (213:68), "nestling in the pines" 
(.W:-), on high hills, thus enjoying a commanding position over 
weHMlTrnJ'^ country" (16:-), and be "fed well" so as to "pray 

I do not wish to discourage any who are contemplating matri- 
mony, although what is to follow may well-nigh discourage it in 

"I am glad you have come to me dear Miriam," he [Spinoza] 
said [to his sister]; "but how you have aged! Are you ill or in 



626 

trouble?" "I am quite well, God be praised!" answered Miriam, 
sighing, and could not complain otherwise. "Yes, dear brother, 
marrying is marrying, two bad confinements, thirteen weeks in bed, 
and the household going to ruin all the time; no rest at night with 
the children, and trouble and care the whole year round" (213:H79). 
"Take my advice and don't ever get marriad," * * * addressing 
her visitor for the first time directly. "It is a slave's life, never a 
moment's peace and quiet day or night, year in an year out." — A 
wife (214:60). "The cares and troubles necessarily incidental to 
the parental relation, the daily anxieties, the nights of wakeful so- 
licitude, the misgivings, the fears, and the sorrows without number, 
it would be imi)ossible for human nature to suj^ijort without the aid 
of an implanted principle" [The affections.] (215:373). 

Here is a poem on the death of little children: 
"Ah! it causes bitter smarting, 

And a draught of myrrh we drink, 
When from little children parting 

At the graves relentless brink. 
Hearts are breaking then with grief 
Which in words finds no relief." 

— Gerhardt, (216:121). 

Do celibates in cloisters have such draughts of myrrh to drink 
as is caused parents by the death of a child? 

" — , the 13-year-old daughter of — * * * (J^jqjJ * * * 
this morning * * * jjer illness was similar to that of — , her 
younger brother, who died — morning, and whose body was to have 
been interred this morning. The funeral arrangements have been 
changed, and both will be buried — * * * rpjjg circumstances 
are unusually sad and it is not to be wondered at that the parents 
are almost beside themselves with grief" (Daily Paper). 

Do you think they needed to pray for suffering in order to ex- 
ercise their "heroic love" as some so-called Saints are supposed to 
have done? 

"The saints yearn for suffering and pray for crosses. The com- 
mon cares, [Like those of the married] the ordinary weariness of 
life, [Like a benedict at 2 a. m. walking the floor with a baby who 
needs paregoric, and who has to be at his place of labor at 7 am.] 
are not en{>ugh to satisfy them, because they do not give them room 
for their heroic love." (11:148). 



627 



"Whatever may be your grief for the death of your children, 
It might have been still greater for their life. Bitter experience 
once led a good man to say, 'it is better to weep for ten children 
dead, than for one living'" (217:19). 

Oh, how true that is for many! One needs but read of trials 
in courts where one child of a family has brought disgrace, sufPer- 
mg, and financial ruin on the family. Many and many good parents 
have sufferings and crosses brought on them by those who are re- 
lated to them by the ties of kindred, that are enough to "give them 
room for their heroic love" without them having to "yearn for suf- 
fering and pray for crosses," do you not think so? 

When parents can say from experience, "small children small 
burden, large children large burden," as I have overheard many say 
do you not suppose that they had "common cares," and "weariness 
of life" enough without yearning for more suffering and prayino- for 
more crosses in order to "give them room for their heroic love"' 
When parents cannot sleep at times for worry and solicitude over a 
sick, or indefinitely afflicted invalid child, as I have overheard some 
say, do you not suppose that they had suffering and crosses enough 
without praying for more to "give them room for their heroic love " 
as some saints are supposed to have done? 

And will anyone dare say that God sends the married the 
trials, anxieties, and crosses, 'such as have been mentioned in this 
chapter, as punishments for their "huge immortifications" of indulg- 
ing the lawful pleasures of the married state? Is God such a 
frowning and arbitrary Being as to endow His creatures with such 
powerful and impelling forces, driving them into marriage as are 
the emotion of love, the parental instinct, and the procreative pas- 
sion, and because they do His bidding and fulfill His design and 
iniunction of Gen. 1:28, He punishes them for it, because they did 
not embrace virginity, or celibacy, and become "His own loved 
spouses" (78:56)? Is that your opinion of God? If not, then have 
I not turned another table on the Catholic Church, and proved 
that the married state is just as blessed, aud is serving God just 
as much as is virginity, or celibacy, which shuts itself up in 
cloisters "where the atmosphere is free from worldly corruption and 
untainted with the woes and temptations of a wicked world" (212-68) 
||nestling in the pines," where they must be "fed well" in order to 
pray well" (11:194) the Rosary often,-which would require the 



628 

"most gracious advocate" to listen to over 46,000 petitions at one 
and the same time every second of time from one end of the year 
to the other, if she were to listen to all the petitions addressed to 
her by the hundred million "practical" Catholics on this earth, — 
perpetually adoring a wafer God, — which I have proved, elsewhere, 
is nothing but a piece of baked dough, — daily reading "The Office 
through once and rather quickly," — which would be like one who 
should daily read the Constitution of the United States thinking 
that by doing so one was "serving" the country — out of "earthly 
bread" making the "Celestial God," — which would be reversing the 
order of Creation which once was, "and God spoke," and certain 
elements became man, now ,man — priest — speaks and "earthly bread" 
becomes God; the creature making the eternal, uncreated Creator, 
then "feeding upon" Him and assimilating Him so that — the "blood 
of a God flows in their veins," firing their hearts so with the spirit 
and life of Christ that they "sit supinely back taking matters 
easily?" 

I would not have had anything to say on the subject had not 
the church exalted virginity, or celibacy, above matrimony and tried 
to make it appear that those who entered the married state had not 
the "good taste, the sense of 'beauty,' nor the appreciation of 'dig- 
nity" that those are supposed to have who enter the state of virginity, 
and would then place her anathema on those who should say that 
virginity, or celibacy, is not more blessed in the sight of God than 
matrimony. But when she did that then . that devil, who caused 
Lucifer to rebel against God, caused me to rebel against the teach- 
ings of the "Infallible (error teaching) Church of Rome" (11:267). 
In my opinion and estimation a married woman who has an infant 
— a "counterfeit of creation" (109:573) — nestling in her arms or who 
has to appear in public in a Mother Hubbard-like attire for a time, 
occasionally, or a married man who pushes a baby buggy with his 
child in it, is just as blessed in the sight of God, and is just as 
exalted a person and has shown just as much "good taste," has just 
as much a "sense of beauty" and is just as appreciative of "dignity" 
by having married, as is the one who goes about with a sancti- 
monious face, down cast eyes, — a characteristic of the submission of 
the intellect to blind, erroneous faith — wearing gloomy, mournful 
attire, and cowl over the head, with a Rosary, nearly large enough 



629 

for a dog chain, dangling from a belt, and who has embraced vir- 
ginity, or celibacy. What do you say? 

Mentioning "gloomy, mournful attire" reminds me of the prac- 
tice of Catholics who go in mourning from six months to a year or 
longer for the death of a relative. Why do they do it? Do they 
grieve so long over it because their loved ones left this "vale of 
tears" and have gone to heaven? When they grieve so inordinately 
over the loss of a relative, is that consistent with their prayer said 
daily as follows: "O, my God, I love Thee above all things with my 
whole heart and soul," (43:83), and with the teachings of the Bible 
which says: 

"My son, shed tears over the dead, and begin to lament as if. 
thou hadst suffered some great harm, and according to judgment 
cover his body, and neglect not his burial. And for fear of being 
ill spoken of, weep bitterly for a day, and then comfort thyself in 
thy sadness. And make mourning for him, according to his merit, 
for a day, or two, for fear of detraction," (Ecclus. 38:16-18), [That 
is not six months or a year or indefinitely, is it?] and: "He that 
loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he 
that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me" 
(Matt. 10:37)? 

When one mourns — with the apparel and not with the heart, 
as many do — so long over the loss of a relative, does that look like 
one is worthy of Christ or that one loves God "above all things 
with whole heart and soul?" When you lose God through mortal 
sin do you show your grief over it to the world by wearing sack- 
cloth until you regain Him again in the confessional where "by 
one act of obedience and humility the proud sinner cancels a whole 
life of iniquity and rebellion" (7:393), and thereby again merit the 
friendship of God, hence possessing Him again? 

Or do you go about in gloomy mournful attire because you 
believe God is such a frowning, arbitrary and vindictive Being 
that He cannot brook that His children should have so an exalted 
and noble a conception of His character as to be light-hearted in 
the contemplation of the thought that your departed loved ones 
might be in heaven with Him instead of being in purgatory, — a 
place of which, if the teachings of the Church on the efficacy of 
the Mass, and of the Indulgences were true, the doors would be 
closed with this sign on it: "Closed for want of 'beloved spouses 



630 

of Christ' (1:69, Nov. 1902), whom 'the Lord .loves tenderly' (65:27), 
whose sins He has pardoned 'like a mother that kisses the offense 
into everlasting t'orgetfulness' (16: Oct. 31, 1902) for 'the demons 
to touch and harass'" (11:378)? Is that all the consolation the 
Catholic religion has to offer that we must mourn over the departed 
as though we had no hope, as the unbelievers have no hope, of a 
future life, where we shall meet the departed ones when we also 
take our departure from this plane of existence? 

Go to a Catholic church and see all the elderly and decrepit 
women in somber and mournful attire. It makes it appear as 
though God were a terrible, arbitrary and heartless Being Who 
could not brook His children having a happy and cheerful counte- 
nance or appearance. When the time once comes that I must lay 
off my "earthly house of this habitation" (2 Cor. 5:1), and any 
should mourn for me I want them, after the funeral, to do so in 
their hearts and not advertise their sorrow to the world by wearing 
somber mournful attire. There is enough of gloom and sorrow in 
this world without being constantly reminded of it by wearing 
mourning apparel beyond the time of the funeral of a departed 
member of a family. 

To return to the subject under consideration. I do not want 
any one to think that I regard with contempt virginity, or celibacy. 
My contention is only to maintain that marriage is just as blessed 
in the sight of God as virginity or celibacy, and that as far as this 
life is concerned the state of virginity is better for many than 
matrimony might have been. 

Who would not rather see a daughter or a sister a Nun in a 
convent, where she is provided for all the time, than see her mar- 
ried to a man, who after marriage — as many men do — becomes 
shiftless and worthless, or becomes a drunkard, neglecting, starving, 
abusing and cruelly treating her, as is evidenced by the rej^orts and 
scenes in police and other courts, reports of which appear in the 
daily papers from time to time? 

For such a one, and there are many such — for in the twenty 
years, from 1867 to 1886, there were granted, in the United States 
to women, 7,955 divorces from "neglect to provide," 12,432 for 
drunkenness, and 45,473 for cruelty (218:169) — the state of virginity, 
voluntary or forced, would have been better. But that does not say 
that happy marriages, with their joys and sorrows, are not as good 



631 

and blessed in the sight of God as virginity, or celibacy, is. And 
to say that God is not so well pleased with His children when they 
indulge the lawful pleasures He has put at their disposal, as He 
would be with them did they deny them, would impeach Him and 
make Him an arbitrary and ensnaring God, and place Him beneath 
the character of His normal, noble human creatures. For what noble 
parents would not want their children to be as happy, and enjoy all 
the lawful pleasures they could provide for them, when absent from 
them in a far away country, the same as though they were pres- 
ent with them? 

Will God then frown on His children because they enjoy, with 
thanksgiving, all the lawful pleasures He has jjut at their disposal 
here, because tliey are absent from Him, but will be pleased with 
it if His children, when present with Him in heaven, enjoy "num- 
berless delights and unspeakable happiness?" God forbid that I 
should have such a low, ignoble and debasing opinion of Him as 
to. believe that! 

He designed the male and the female for a i^urpose, endowing 
them with the emotions, instincts and passions necessary for their 
preservation and perpetuation, and "has ordained that love shall 
wear the gossamer harness of law; and so the race falls into line 
two and two by marriage" (121:55), for companionship and as a 
biological need. 

When God said: "It is not good for man to be alone: let us 
make him a help like unto himself" (Gen. 2:18), does that not prove 
that a prime object of matrimony is companionship, and that male 
and female "should frequently be in each other's atmosphere, so as 
to gain those balancing and animating forces with which nature 
[Of which God is the author] has so beautifully provided them," 
and "that when the sexes are thus brought into proximity the 
stronger electricities of man are made to course through woman's 
system, and the refined electricities of woman through man's, it is 
evident that both gain a new power, and health, and harmony" 
(151:131)? 

Does that not also prove design in creation, which atheistic 
evolution denies, saying it is all the result of. "blind chance," and 
likewise undermines the teachings of Christian Science which says 
that celibacy is nearer right than marriage? Christian Science asks: 

"Is marriage nearer right than celibacy? Human knowledge 



632 

inculcates that it is, while Science indicates that it is not." 
(124:288). Well, a Science which makes the intellect a "dethroned 
king" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900), and believes it is fair weather "in 
the midst of murky clouds and drenching rain," because "the bar- 
ometer, that little prophet of storm and sunshine, — denying the 
testimony of the senses, — points to fair weather, and in the midst 
of murky clouds and drenching rain" (109:16), is liable to "indi- 
cate" anything, even from a brother and sister relation marriage to 
the abolition of marriage. 

"To abolish marriage at this period, and maintain morality and 
generation, would put ingenuity to ludicrous shifts; [As for instance 
the suggestion, in another chapter, of using an incubator and 
"powerful eloquence" for the generation of "counterfeits of creation" 
— children (109:573)] yet this is possible in Science, [That is 
Christian Science] although it is to-day problematic" (124:286), 
just as it is "problematic" that healers will ever "demonstrate" 
without being paid matter," illusion" (109:582) — money, for it. 

Here is a science, though, which, when it sees it rains believes 
it rains, which says: "Natural Science, however, shows that the 
institution of marriage has for its object the rational regulation of 
the sex relation as a necessary part of the struggle for comple- 
tion," [Of the individual] and "that the prime cause of marriage 
is spiritual [The emotion of love being spiritual] rather than purely 
biological, [The parental instinct and the procreative passion being 
biological] it is the powerful impulse for vibratory correspondence 
["Not good for man to be alone" (Gen. 2:18),] or for sympathy" 
(179:297). 

Is not this latter Science more of a science than Christian 
Science is? a. f. y. 

It may be seen then that marriage is for companionship as 
well as for a biological need; and that the prime cause or motive 
of marriage should be love and sympathy and not wealth, fame, 
title, or position as is alas! too often the case nowadays. 

What is marriage without love? Here are a few answers: 

"A loveless marriage is an unchaste union. * * * She who 
shrinks in positive physical repugnance from the lover's kiss; 
[ Permeated probably with the order of tobacco or liquor or both] ; 
who feels no drawing toward him beyond the cordial liking she 
experiences for several others; who sickens at the imagination of 



633 

the constant companionship of wedded life, * * * if she mar- 
ries him in defiance of maidenly instinct, she becomes mistress, not 
wife. No considerations of worldly policy, no amount of parental 
influence, not all the blessings of stoled priest and the applause of 
those who commend the 'excellent match' can change the character 
of the sin. The connection is unnatural, impure, and unsafe" 
(219:404). 

Children born of such unions would they not be as a penalty 
of lust rather than the privilege of love? 

"When the newspapers treat marrying a title and marrying a 
fortune not as prostitution, but as enviable success, it is time for 
the church to reiterate her divine creed on this matter. * * * 
To njarry without supreme affection * * * is to commit adul- 
tery" (88:572, June 26, 1901). 'There are probably a million women 
in this land living lives of legalized prostitution; who conceive 
children in hate of husbands they abhor, bring them forth in bit- 
terness of spirit to be reared in an atmosphere of discord — off- 
spring stamped from their very inception with the die of the crim- 
inal or the courtesan * * * ^ bondage that is bestial, — prosti- 
tution pre-eminently the worst in the world, that of loveless mar- 
riages" (14:335, Vol. 1). 

But says the girl, who would marry without love being the 
supreme motive. If I do not marry then I will be called an "old 
maid." What of it if you are an old maid rather than be married 
to a man whom you do not, and never could, love? 

"The day has far gone by when the term old maid is a synonym 
of reproach." (220:156(. "I want to see more women with the 
moral courage to brave the odium of being old maids rather than 
the pitiful weakness to become loveless wives." (14:179, Vol. 1). 

Yes; if all did that then we would not be likely to have so 
many divorces. Of course, I do not mean by that that the women 
are at fault in the matter. Many a girl, at the time she married, 
married for love but her husband who, when he proposed to her 
saying: "Sweetheart, do you think I am worthy enough to go 
through life with you, hand in hand, as your companion, to share 
your joys and your sorrows with you?" and she said, yes. made a 
misrepresentation to her and really wanted to marry her only for 
her money or only to satisfy his procreative passion — which must 
be the case when he already begins to ill-treat her during the hon- 



634 

eymoon, as is often the complaint made in divorce cases— and did 
not marry her for companionship. She is not to blame then if her 
love grows cold, through his neglect or ill treatment, and she lives 
then a loveless married life with him. 

(Of course, if he proposed to her, saying: "Darling, do you 
think you love me enough to clean my tobacco spittoon daily and 
clean up my drunken vomitings until death do us part"— which is 
the way he ought to have proposed if he is tainted with nicotine 
and drinks intoxicating liquors and if he is honest and truthful— 
and she said, yes, why then that is a different proposition.) 

What then can speak louder than his actions that such was the 
case with him when he never takes his wife to church, to a play, 
or a picnic, etc , but always goes to them without her, and who 
spends his evenings "down town," in saloons, billiard halls, or lodge 
rooms,— with men he worked with during the day, but of whom he 
does not seem to get tired by being with them so much,— leaving 
her alone at home evening after evening? Would you call that 
companionship for her when he does that, especially when he is 
absent from home all day at his place of employment? 

One time a woman's husband died and her neighbors called to 
console her. They said to her that her husband had the reputa- 
tion of being a good man. The widow said: "So they say, but I 
could not know whether he was or not for he belonged to seven 
lodges." That would mean a lodge for every night of the week. 
No wonder she could not know whether he was good or not if he 
was gone all day at his place of employment and was at a lodge 
every night. Well, the way some married men— and some unmar- 
ried ones, too— always spend their time away from home one would 
think they belonged to fourteen lodges— seven for the early even- 
ings and seven for the early mornings of the week. 

Is it any wonder then that some married women, when so 
neglected by their husbands, in their loneliness, pine so for com- 
panionship and cry out saying: 

"Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow— 
The way is lonely, let me feel them now," 
that the way is then often made easy for the seducer, wath evil 
designs, to accomplish his purpose? How otherwise account for 
the fact that in the United States in twenty years, from 1867 to 
1886, there were granted to men 38,184 divorces on account of 



635 

adultery of their wives, and 29,502 divorces to wives for like 
offenses of their husbands (218:169), being nearly 30 per cent, 
more in favor of the men than for the women? Surely no one 
will say that the women, as a rule, are less chaste than the men 
How then account for the above facts if it be not on the ground 
that many men neglect their wives and do not jDlay the companion- 
ship to them which they should? 

Of course there may be this cause for the above facts of 
divorces, showing the women to be the greater oiiender, and that is 
because women are naturally more tender in their nature than the 
men, therefore more ready to forgive, and will forgive their hus- 
bands for their offenses where husbands would not forgive their 
wives for the like offenses. That may be a reason, and it no doubt 
is, why men are given more divorces from their wives for adultery 
than women are given for the like offense of their husbands. 

That the lodge is in a measure responsible for some of the im- 
moralities of women and of the moral and financial ruin of some 
men may be seen from the following: 

"Women weep while their husbands, instead of being at home 
taking care of their wives and children, are at — banquets, getting 
drunk as beasts, and night after night going through this fooling 
and wasting their substance in the secret orders * * * Multi- 
tudes of women have lost heart, have lost hox:)e, and fallen into sin 
because of their husband's neglect; somebody else has come to the 
house when the husband was away; somebody else has told the story 
of how the husband spends his nights after he leaves the lodge, and 
that somebody else oftentimes, pretending to be her friend, wins her 
heart and leads her down to damnation'' (221:79). 

The following is from an ex-secret society member: 

•' 'One does not trifle with truth in saying that no human guage 
can measure the sorrow tliat comes to some families through the too 
close attention of husband and father to the lodge-room. There is 
a strange and powerful attraction for some men in the mysticisms 
of the ritual. [This does not mean the Church ritual.] * * * j^ 
would all but revolutionize a large section of American Society, if 
the wives and grown-up daughters of the households of the men 
who belong to these organizations, should insist on their right to 
sjoend for their own adornment, or their own personal pleasure, dol- 
lar for dollar spent by husband or brother for dues and initiations, 



636 

for regalia and uniform and swords, for plumes and banners and 
banquets. In the great majority of cases the amount of money 
paid out for the actual expenses of the lodge, as the dues of the 
order, is not great; it is in the field of personal gratification that 
the vast unaccounted-for sum is expended * * * It is probable 
that for mere personal gratification, aside from the real or imaginary 
benefits, the members of the various secret organizations in the 
United States spend annually in banquets, railroad and traveling 
expenses, costly gifts to retiring ofiicers, testimonials, elaborate uni- 
forms, and rare swords, not less than two hundred and fifty millions 
of dollars. [A year; which is about what it costs boys and men for 
cigarettes and cigars for becoming and being "men," according to 
the idea of the man, at a wedding, who passed around liquor and 
cigars among the guests.] * * * It is quite likely that the sum 
is considerably more than this'" (222:52). 

The following may be the key to why some bank defaulters and 
criminals in high places are not punished, or "if one of these men 
are sent to the penitentiary, he only spends a few months * * * 
when he is liberated by a— Governor" 

"Just notice in our court rooms. * * * Here is a prisoner. 
He is before a court; he is a criminal; he has committed larceny, 
or he has committed some other crime; here is the judge, and here 
is the jury, and here are the lawyerys. There is one — [a member of 
a Secret Society] in that jury. That is all they need. * * * 
He goes in with eleven brother jurors into the jury room, and he 
will hang the eleven before he will hang his brother — [a member of 
a Secret Society.] So the courts of law have become a farce 
through the influence of the — grip and the grand hailing sign of 
distress." * * * [' "Should I see the sign, or hear the words ac- 
companying it, I will immediately repair to the relief of the per- 
son so giving it, should there be a greater probability of saving 
his life than of losing my own.'"—] (222:19, 20). 

Do you marvel now why there are some flagrant miscarryings 
of justice, which the papers speak of as "a travesty on justice?" 

As the foregoing quotation speaks of one man in the jury 
hanging "the eleven before he will hang" the prisoner, I would like 
to say this about the jury system, whether in the power of a mem- 
ber of a secret society or not, and that is, why should a jury be 
unanimous in agreeing on a verdict before it can render one? In 



637 

every other department of government the majority rules, does it 
not? Then why should not the majority rule in a court of justice? 
Do you not believe justice would be better served, and it would 
have a greater restraining influence on crime if, we will say, two- 
thirds of a jury could return a verdict instead of requiring all of 
the jury to agree to it, or letting one or more hang the jury? 

It is offering a gratutious insult to the judgment of eleven — 
or even eight — jurors to believe or say that one or four others of 
the same jury are right and all the others mistaken in their con- 
victions and judgments, and allow a small minority to override the 
great majority. Is that not so? And if it is is it not about time 
then that the jury law be amended so that two-thirds, or three- 
fourths, may render a verdict? a. f. y. It would then not be so 
easy to bribe a jury, either. 

(I will run off the main track; my subjects seeming to have 
plenty of branch lines, "feeders," which probably ought to be 
'•merged" or lopped off). 

It may be seen then that many married women are neglected 
by their husbands, in various ways, exposing them to great temp- 
tations, especially so as woman's nature is more emotional than 
man's, which requires a protestation of love, and where she may 
truthfully say, with the pure-minded man, in whom the affections 
have been awakened by an object of affection; 
"Love me, beloved, for many a day 
Will the mists of the morning pass away, 
Many a day will the brightness of noon 
Lead to a night that has lost its moon, 
And in joy or in sorrow, in autumn or spring, 
Thy love to my soul is a needful thing." 
If, then, men do not want their wives to be lonesome, there- 
fore exposed to temptation, they must play that home companion- 
ship to them which their nature requires. And the way to do that, 
it seems, is for the boy, whilst growing to manhood, to cultivate 
the faculty of staying at home evenings, and at other times, when- 
ever he can, acquiring the habit of home-staying, — thereby also be- 
ing less exposed to temptation and forming other habits which may 
not be good, — instead of always going "down town" to spend his 
leisure time. 

If one has not acquired a love of home and of staying at home 



638 

whenever one can, before marriage, one is not likely to do so after 
marriage. Habits sown in youth almost invariably become second 
nature in maturity. That is a natural result according to the law 
of nature and of growth where one reaps what one has sown and 
where a thing grows by what it feeds on. 

That there are other causes besides neglect contributing to 
unhai)piness for both in marriage I do not deny. No doubt the 
jDrincipal one of these is that of false pretenses in courting. 

"The worst of love matters in these days is that people, who 
ought to court to understand each other, do so to fool each other 
instead" (3:368). 

How true that is in many cases. The woman comes into the 
parlor, dressed neatly, smiling bewitchingly, and speaking in a gentle 
and low voice. The man calling does about likewise, both appear- 
ing at their best. Td see them then one would think that they 
were all neatness, all amiability and all good — angelic beings. But 
see them when they are about their duties or occupations: what a 
difference then. The neat man and woman have become slovenly 
and negligent. The smiles, when things do not run smoothly, have 
become frowns and the gentle voice stentorian and growling. No 
wonder then that marriage is spoken of- as a "lottery," When they 
court under those conditions neither one can possibly tell whether 
those characteristics displayed by the one or the other or by both, 
during courtship, are real or are put on for effect. If put on for 
effect then marriage must be a lottery, for one could not tell 
whether they were real or shams, therefore one has taken chances, 
which makes it, indeed, a lottery, does it not? 

A good idea would be to have a phonograph where the woman 
performs her daily duties, and one where the man is employed, to 
record their voices and language and then let their "affinities" 
listen to what the records have to say of each other. Such a 
practice might prevent many a marriage which afterwards has to 
be dissolved — putting asunder what God (wealth, beauty, title or 
position) "hath joined together" — by the divorce courts. 

If women remembered the following it might be better in the 
end for a great many of them, also: 

"It is soul and mind a man wants in women, [and no doubt a 
woman wants the same in man,] and not mere figure, or any sort 
of paint or cotton aids; but it is thought and soul, not flesh [That 



639 

does not sound very encouraging for those who wear decollete 
gowns] and fol-loll, which allures sensible lovers; hence a girl who 
seeks to win a genuine man [Not the kind of a "man" a certain 
man spoke of at a wedding when he passed around liquor and 
cigars.] must play a judicious hand of mental, social, moral and 
commonsensical atfectionate cards, not the physical mainly, as it is 
the fashion to do in these modern times; for that. bait catches 
either worthless scamps or empty-headed fools, both of which are 
rather poor investments as husbands." (3:332). 

A priest who has had over a quarter of a century's experience 
and observation has this advice for the unmarried who contemplate 
matrimony: 

"To the young women he said: [In a sermon in a church on 
marriage] 'If you find a young man who prefers to hang around 
(saloons) and gambling dens instead of making an honest living, 
don't marry him.' [That is good advice, indeed.] And to the 
. young men he said: 'It makes no difference, boys, how bright her 
eyes, how red her cheeks or how well she can play the piano or 
dance; if she is not a good housekeeper, don't marry her. I am 
convinced that a large portion, perhaps the major portion of mari- 
tal unhappiness, is caused by the wife's lack of knowledge of mat- 
ters pertaining to her household duties.'" (16: Jan. 23, 1903). 

Ah, but the good priest did not say how a young man was to 
find out whether a girl was a good "housekeeper" or not. How will 
a young man find out that when he is never invited to a girl's 
home to jjartake of a meal she has prepared and which she serves? 
He never gets beyond the parlor in the house. How then can he 
know or see how she cooks, and keeps the house in order beyond 
the parlor? Yes, and how many girls would not rather stand be- 
hind a counter selling goods or sit in an ofiice and play on the 
typewriter than do the housework in their own homes? Such girls 
labor under the false impression that a sensible man of good char- 
acter would not want to hear of them doing so "menial" a thing as 
their own house-work. How then is the young man to know 
whether a girl is a good housekeeper or not, and would therefore 
make a good or a poor wife? 

There is no question about it but that good housekeeping is one 
of the essentials of a happy married life, according to this: 

"It is well known that love thrives in the sunshine, sickens in 



640 

the shade, and that however ethereal it may be, it still has strong 
affinities to good beef and sound food generally; that it flourishes 
better in a cottage than in a cabin; [Or in one room on the fourth 
floor of a building four blocks from the end of a street car line.] 
and that even democratic soap and water [And breaths of tobacco- 
less and liquorless odors] has much to do with its culture, growth, 
strength, depth, and perpetuity" (3.30). 

According to that then it would be well for young men not to 
live, before they are [married, on the principle of "I am going to 
enjoy myself while I am young," spending all their earnings, and 
after they are married have to live in a cabin or in one room in a 
several storied building; and for young women to learn how to cook 
well and to keep house neatly, as well as to learn to play the 
piano and to paint pictures on canvas. If all would do that, and 
would look more to character and tact than to wealth, beauty, title 
or position, and practiced the Golden Rule of marriage — bear and. 
forbear — divorces would soon be a thing of the past, and this earth 
of a "vale of tears" would soon become a sojourning place where 
we may have a foretaste of heaven, instead of as it now is to many, — 
a hell. 

We have now seen that marriage is not a state whose path is 
so strewed wnth roses that God should frowm on its lawful pleas- 
ures, or that He would be less pleased with those who persevere 
faithfully in it unto the end than with those who choose voluntary 
virginity, or celibacy. That there is just as much solicitude for "the 
things of this world" in the one state as well as in the other, and 
that God is just as well served if we make one person happy in 
matrimony as He is served in perpetually adoring a wafer, etc., etc., 
by those who have chosen virginity or celibacy. 

That God will not fix our position in heaven according to the 
way w-e have exercised here the faculty of "good taste," and that 
those who have married have shown just as much "good taste," as 
fine a sense of "beauty," and were just as appreciative of "dignity," 
as those who chose virginity, or celibacy, which goes about with 
somber attire and cowls and has a Rosary, nearly large enough for 
a dog chain, dangling at the belt? Is that not so? a. f. y. 

And now what does the anathema of the Ourch, at the head of 
this chapter, amount to? Why no more than the following anath- 



■ 641 

ema, which the Church will no doubt proclaim after she reads this 
book, will amount to. 

"If any one shall say that the Blessed Virgin, whom Joseph 
knew (Matt. 1:25), and who had other sons and daughters (Mark 
6:3), cannot listen to and hear over forty-six thousand petitions at 
one and the same time — simultaneously — and intercede for us before 
God at the same rate, therefore doing over ninety-two thousand 
things every second of time from one end of the year to the other, 
and is therefore not to be invoked or prayed to, let him be anath- 
ema (Counc. of Atchison, Sess. 25, Can. 11)." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



Summary and Conclusions, 

We are now about ready to draw the book to a close, and will 
try, by a short summary and some conclusions, to make the final 
appeal for bringing about Christian Unity or the union of the 
churches. We have seen that spme of the subjects, which we have 
examined and analyzed, contain some elements of truth and also 
much error. The first of the subjects considered was that of the 
Roman Catholic religion. We found, with the "arms of the intel- 
lect," — the weapons she surely ought not to deny her antagonists 
the use of if she intends to use them herself in her warfare against 
"Infidelity" (1:5, Mar. 1902)— that the Church is full of errors, 
idolatries, superstitions and blasphemies. 

The first of her doctrines we examined was that of Everlasting 
Punishment, and we found that by making a human analogy of it 
it would, if the doctrine were true, degrade the character of Grod 
beneath that of some of His noble human creatures, who are 
members of Humane Societies and Bands of Mercy, who would 
stay the hands of inhuman brutes who would inflict vindictive, 
arbitrary and unreasonable punishment and suffering on human 
beings or on animals. Such a conception of God's character, on 
the level with an inhuman brute, certainly no reasonable and 
merciful person will entertain. If then the source is no higher 
even than the stream we must then believe the doctrine of ever- 
lasting punishment to be an error, a blasphemy, notwithstanding 
the teachings of the Catholic Church on it. The Church says 
further: 

"They [Men and nations] have armed heaven and earth against 
her. [I have armed neither of them, but have used the faculty of 
the "arms of the intellect," which God has given me to use and 
not to throw them under the feet of faith.] They have threatened 
her. They have persecuted her, yes, and they have implored her. 
[I will not implore her, for there is nothing to implore with errorj 
It only needs to be uncovered and that ought to be sufl&cient with 



643 

the reasonable and thinking classes.] 'Everything on earth changes,' 
they have said to her. [And so has the Church herself changed, 
for before the thirteenth century she kneW nothing of the Rosary, 
the Scapular, the Nijie first Fridays, the May Devotions, etc., etc. 
That is quite a change, is it not?] 'Natural Science, human laws, 
philosophy, governments, dynasties, all these change. And art thou 
alone to remain as granite? Make one concession at least, Grive 
up the doctrine of eternal punishment. * * * gj^e answers: 'I 
am immutable. I am God's truth, and God cannot change.' " — A 
priest's address on "The Church" (53 — ). 

But God has changed, if the Bible and the Catholic Church 
are His oracles. 

"If any man commit adultery with the wife of another, and 
defile his neighbor's wife, let them be put to death, both the 
adulterer and the adulteress" (Lev. 20:10). "Even in the earliest 
ages she [The Church] imposed great jjenances upon sinners for 
their sins which were already forgiven. For instance, murder or 
adultery was punished by a penance of twenty years. * * * 
During this time it was not allowed to travel, except on foot, to 
be present at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or to receive the holy 
Eucharist, [Putting on Christ according to Pope Leo "XIII., in- 
stead of putting on Christ through the operation of the mind by 
an act of the will — a mental process and an exercise of will power.] 
* * * In our days, on account of the weakness of the faithful, 
[Like that of the Israelites and the people "in the earliest ages" 
had a "weakness" for adultery] the Church is lenient. [Oh, it is 
not God then Who is "lenient," for ''God cannot change," who 
has been doing the changing then in regard to punishing of adult- 
ery?] Besides the ecclesiastical, [That is, the man made, as for 
instance, saying the Rosary — the "Beads" — for a penance] the spiritual 
punishments which would have to be suffered either here or in 
purgatory for the taking of sins, are shortened and mitigated by 
indulgences" (5:553). The Church also teaches that "A Plenary 
Indulgence is the remission of the whole debt of temporal punish- 
ment" (30:294). 

Here then the punishment of adultery has had three degrees. 
First it was punished by death, then by a penance of twenty years, 
and now it is remitted altogether by a plenary indulgence, which 
is easier to gain than a healing in Christian Science. Now if the 



644 

Bible and the Catholic Church are "God's truth, and God cannot 
change," then who has made the changes with regard to punishing 
adultery? Is the Church not arrogating to herself claims which 
she does not possess when she says "I am immutable. I am God's 
truth, and God cannot change," yet she has changed in her mode 
of punishing adultery? 

Because the church has become "lenient" on account of the 
"weakness of the faithful," and does not impose now the severe 
penances on the sinners which she once did, is that "God's truth" 
that he also has become lenient towards His creatures on account 
of their weaknesses? If so, then why may not He also change on 
the subject of eternal punishment and inspire his church to give 
up that doctrine on account of the weakness of the faith of the 
faithful who will and can no longer believe in it, especially after 
they once read,! his book? 

But whether she does or not it will all depend on it whether 
any persons, after reading this book, will deliberately close their 
eyes to reason, intellect and common sense and throw the "arms of 
the intellect" under the feet of blind, erroneous, unreasonable, 
incomprehensible, self-contradictory and blaspheming faith by still 
believing in the vindictive, pitiless, unreasonable, blasphemous and 
God-calumniating doctrine of eternal punishment. If not, then the 
church need not give up that doctrine, for there will then be no 
one to believe in her, and if no one any longer believes in her, 
then who would want her to give up that doctrine. I do not want 
her to do it, for I want to see a "One Church," which teaches the 
religion of humanity which Jesus taught, arise on the ruins of the 
churches of the present which put their religion on costly edifices 
and in rites and ceremonies, mechanically performing "divine ser- 
vices" by counting their prayers on beads or reading them out of 
books, instead of letting the heart spontaneously utter them; by 
adorincf a wafer God and then eating Him so that the "blood of a 
God flows through their veins" (7:88), so firing their hearts with 
the spirit and life of Christ that they will not join a society be- 
cause it has too many "kitchen mechanics," "pot slingers," "com- 
mon laborers," "mud sills of society," etc., etc., belonging to it, and 
"sit supinely back taking matters easily." Yes, we do not want 
such a church which does the latter things however her theological 



645 

embroidery may be trimmed by giving up the doctrine of eternal 
punishment. 

The next subject we examined was that of the Atonement. We 
saw that it was an erroneous and blaspheming doctrine, and that 
Jesus was not crucified in order to appease God (7:78), nor to re- 
deem us from the "slavery of the devil" (30:117), nor as a "substi- 
tutionary sufferer that we may live," but because He was a "heretic" 
and a blasphemer in the eyes of the Jewish priesthood. That is 
all there was to it. 

Because St. Paul in Rom. 3:25, and St. John in 1. John 2:2, 
and in other places, said that Jesus was the "propitiation for our 
sins" does not make the crucifixion of Him an Atonement in 
the theological sense, because they were still tinged more or less 
with the Jewish belief that Grod would not forgive sins without the 
sacrifice of a sin-offering of the blood of oxen, rams, sheep, etc. 
Therefore they believed that Grod still required — after abolishing 
the Jewish idea of sacrifices of oxen, etc., as sin-off'erings — a sacri- 
fice, a shedding of blood, a sin-offering of some kind in order to 
be in a fit mood to forgive sins, and they, therefore, thought that 
the crucifixion of Jesus was meant as a sin-offering sufficient for 
all time, hence the reasons for their belief as expressed in their 
writings. 

The next subject we examined was that of the Mass, with its 
concomitants, Transubstantiation and the Eucharist. As the foun- 
dation of the Mass rested on the doctrine of the Atonement, we saw 
that with the undermining of the Atonement the superstructure, the 
Mass, must necessarily collapse with it, and this it did before the 
onslaughts of the "arms of the intellect." We saw that the Mass 
was nothing but a species of error, idolatry, superstition and blas- 
phemy, making God such a relentless Being whose wrath could not 
be appeased unless His beloved Son was continually undergoing 
the agony he did on Calvary when he cried out: "My God, My 
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!" 

If a human father had committed such an insane and repre- 
hensible deed, as requiring the death of his only son to appease 
the wrath he incurred through the disobedience of some of his 
adopted children, he would, on having recovered his sanity and a 
representation of his deed was attempted to be made, exclaim: "For 
heaven's sake do not remind me of that insane and reprehensible 



I 



646 

deed of mine!" Well that is just what the Mass would be accord- 
ing to the teachings of the Church if her teachings were true, 
which, of course, they are not. God is not insane nor did He re- 
quire the reprehensible act of Calvary to appease His wrath, there- 
fore, as proven in the chapter of the Mass, the Mass is worse than 
nothing in the sight of God, and for which the church builds such 
magnijBcent buildings and altars where the Mass may be celebrated, 
burdening them so with debt that there is such a "ding-dong about 
money that people get tired of it," as a priest once said in my 
hearing. 

It is a case of making a temple, built by hands, in which God 
dwelleth not (Acts 17:24), [Oh, I can find "Scriptural warrant," 
too, for anything I wish.] a meet dwelling place instead of making 
the heart a meet dwelling place for God, by adorning it with 
charity, sympathy, consideration and fellow-feeling for our fellow- 
men, be they black ["Niggers," as some fire-eating, rip-snorting, 
bubble-dancing Christian politicians, Christian hotel employees and 
Christian High School graduates, would, probably, call them, as 
though the poor negro could help that he was black instead of 
white], white or maroon. 

This thing of building magnificent temples, in the midst of 
poverty and suffering, is like putting gold on the church steeple 
instead of putting bread into the mouths of the hungry on the 
ground, and which has brought forth the following: "The lavish 
waste of wealth so often found in buildings consecrated to a 
charity-loving Lord by a poverty-stricken community is evidence 
of the unholy vanity of those who thus confiscate their victims' 
savings. Many a poor Catholic village invests a total in its cathe- 
dral that would double the home comfort [Which might be a 
"huge immortification," though, to have better home comfort.] of 
the entire membership" (223:237). 

Mentioning the word "cathedral" in the last quotation reminds 
me of a cathedral about which there has been some talk of build- 
ing in the United States. A Catholic paper speaking of it says: 
"Plans for an American St. Peter's, [I wonder if Indulgences will 
be granted for contributions to its building fund as was done when 
St. Peter's was built in Rome, and which caused Luther to rise 
up against the Catholic Church?] which, if constructed according 
to the model, should be the most magnificent structure in the 



647 

world, are now on exhibition at the Architectural league in New 
York. The idea is so colossal, of such vast importance to the 
Roman Catholic interests in this country, that eminent Catholic 
clergymen [Who believe the Blessed Virgin can hear over 46,000 
petitions every second of time.] with whom a reporter talked were 
loath to express opinions. The proposition is to erect in New 
York [Where, if one wants to know of the misery, poverty, squalor 
and suffering there one but needs to read "How the Other Half 
Lives," by J. A. Riis.] * * * a cathedral that will outdo St. 
Peter's at Rome both in size and beauty, an edifice that will be a 
tenth wonder of the world. The estimated cost is $25,000,000. 
Ever since the Catholic church began its work in this country it 
has been the aim of ecclesiastics to build a structure of this sort. 
I Well the ecclesiastics ought to be able to realize their "aim" in 
about six years, if they will annually contribute to that purpose 
the four millions or so of dollars they receive yearly, as I have 
shown in another chapter to be the case, as "honorariums" for 
saying Masses,' at five dollars for a High Mass, one dollar for a 
Low Mass, and no money No Mass, when said for deceased pastors* 
and laymen some of whom have been dead over twenty-five years. 
If they do that then I suppose it will make no difference if the 
laity refuse to "contribute one cent" for that purpose or not.] 
* * * (The) design calls for countless pieces of statuary [One 
no doubt of which will be of the Blessed Virgin, so it can be 
carried on a platform in the aisles of the church, preceded by a 
procession of children singing: "Sancta Maria. Ora, ora, ora pro 
nobis," when they have the closing exercises of the May Devo- 
tions.] both inside and outside the building, representing saints, 
[Who thanked "God for hell itself, and for all the pains and 
punishments that are there, because they are such an effectual 
bridle to our inordinate passions" (11:254), and who "retired into 
the depths of a great wilderness," making the desert re-echo with 
"sobs and sighs," and took stones in hand to strike the breast 
until blood began to flow, because of the "great fear of hell" (7:229).] 
angels and other symbolic figures [One of which is no doubt to 
be a symbol of that devil who tempted Lucifer to rebel against 
God.]. These are to be of the finest workmanship and together 
with the other embellishments must cost not less than $10,000,000" 
(16: Dec. 19, 1902). 



648 

Think of it! Twenty-five millions of dollars for a temple — foT 
what? To perform rites and ceremonies, that are not a "gratuitous 
insult" to God, nor "heretical," nor a "mere spectacle," — oh, no! — 
when a high church dignitary, with six or more assistants, with 
one or more master of ceremonies and other supemumeries, officiates 
over a piece of baked dough changing it into a Grod — the creature 
making the uncreated Creator. ["Great God!" how blind we can be 
at times.] And I suppose when it is the occasion of some high 
festival of the Church, where music of the "most elaborate charac- 
ter" is to be given, and of which the program is printed in the 
daily papers of the day before, a charge of one dollar admission 
will be made, probably, as the minimum charge, if a charge of 
twenty-five cents admission, for such an occasion, is made in a 
church which cost less than one twenty-fifth of twenty-five millions 
of dollars. 

Well, time will tell whether the peoj^le will contribute such an 
amount for the building of a Church which puts her religion, prin- 
cipally, in magnificent churches, burdening them so' with debt that 
there is such a "ding dong about money that people get tired of 
it," or whether the people will accept the plain and simple re- 
ligion of humanity taught by Jesus Christ, and jDut their religion 
into their hearts, by putting bread into the mouths of the hungry 
on the ground instead of putting that sum in gold on the church 
steeple. 

Coming back again to our summary. We saw that the way 
the Church teaches the putting on of Christ, that is, by the "fre- 
quentation of the Eucharastic table" (53: April 4, 1900) — Commun- 
ion, is an error. We saw that Christ is put on through the opera- 
tion of the mind — a mental process — by an act of the will — the ex- 
ercise of will-power, manifested in a Christ-like life, and that the 
Eucharist received in Communion is only a piece of baked dough, 
which no more nourishes the soul or preserves from mortal sin 
than an oyster cracker would that would be washed down by a 
"tablespoon full of water," as I have been washing down the Eu- 
charist since I had to Communicate lying in bed. 

We saw wherein the Church erred in her interpretation of what 
is meant by the "Bread of Life." The Church says that the 
Blessed Eucharist is the "Bread of Life" (55: Oct. 1902), while we 
saw that the Gospel is the Bread of Life, and that we were to read 



649 

or hear — Scripturally "eat" — imbibe it with the mind, which is the 
assimilating organ of the soul. And as the mind can only be fed 
through the senses, — of which seeing and hearing are the principal 
ones, — just as the body is fed through the stomach, the senses, there- 
fore, can no more be "deceitful," as Christian Science teaches 
(109:393), if they are to supply the mind with data or facts which 
it is to assimilate — understand, than the food can be adulterated — 
"deceitful" — if it is properly to supply the stomach with nourish- 
ment to assimilate. Is that not so? Is that not then an error of 
the Catholic Church, and a blasphemy of Christian Science, when 
the former says the Blessed Eucharist is the "Bread of Life," and 
the latter says the senses are "deceitful"? a. f. y. 

The next subject we examined was that of the invocation of the 
Blessed Virgin and the saints. We saw that there were, at the low- 
est calculation, over 46,000 petitions addressed, every second of time 
from one end of the year to the other, to the Blessed Virgin, which 
makes it an utter impossibility for her to hear them. As the doc- 
trine of the invocation of the Blessed Virgin was demolished, with 
the "arms of the intellect," that necessarily would likewise under- 
mine that of the invocation of the Saints, as they are invoked not 
a very great deal less than the Blessed Virgin is. 

We also saw, in that chapter, how it was and is possible for 
God to be omnipresent and to hear at one and the same time the 
prayers of over one billion and five hundred millions, the supposed 
present number of inhabitants of the world, should each one pray 
to Him at the same time. That the prayers are not generally 
•answered is no sign that He does not hear them, but it is because 
they would often conflict with one another, therefore He lets things 
transpire according to fixed, immutable laws by which He governs 
the universe. I will give an illustration to prove my point: 

Two farmers we will say, live a mile or more apart and neither 
knows what the other is doing or wants to do. One has his hay 
put up and would like to plow for fall wheat but it is too dry. 
He wishes and prays for rain. The other farmer has a few days 
more of hay to put up or is going to thresh, and wants dry weather 
to continue until he finishes his haying or threshing. (I have been 
there.) He sees a few clouds which makes him fearful it will rain 
and spoil his hay or delay his threshing. He then wishes and 
prays for dry weather to continue. 



650 

Now, what is God to do in a case like that, for both are good, 
God-fearing, Christian men and both have prayed earnestly and sin- 
cerely for what was desired? To be just to both then He must 
ignore both prayers, as though He did not hear them, and let the 
events of dry weather or rain take place according to His fixed 
laws of nature, Is that not so? a. f. y. Hence the reason why 
prayers are not answered sometimes. 

The next subject we examined was Confession, that is, auricular 
confession to a priest. We saw, from Catholic writings (7:345 and 
66:15), that it can be nothing else than a relic of paganism. We 
saw that most of the penances imposed on penitents was the Kosary 
or the Litany of the Saints (See page 125 of this book) which are 
prayers not heard by those to whom addressed, therefore, the pen- 
ances are of no avail and it makes auricular confession to a priest, 
with penances, only an invention of the church by which she may 
know whether any of her children attend Protestant churches or 
do something else which may endanger their faith (63:176-206 and 
57:1901). 

We saw that no sin is forgiven unless forsaken — sin no more — 
and all that we need to do, if we have sinned, is to forsake sin, 
make confession and restitution to those whom we have wronged, 
and that we need not examine our conscience to see how often and 
under what circumstances we committed this or that sin. We saw, 
also, that auricular confession was a device introduced into the 
church to aid the Inquisition, and having once been introduced the 
church could not very readily abolish it again without involving 
her claim to infallibility. We, also, saw that the parable of the 
Prodigal Son was squarely against such a thing as confessing sins 
according to circumstances and number, and that all that is required 
is to repent, make restitution and sin no more. 

The next subjects we examined was that of Indulgences and 
Purgatory. We know from experience and observation that indul- 
gences do not liberate us from "poverty, disease, all sorts of adver- 
sities and accidents" (5:552), as the church teaches. And if indul- 
gences do not do that here, we may rest assured that they will 
never liberate any one from purgatory. 

We, also, saw that an intermediate state of punishment was 
necessary and just that the innocent sufPerers here, who suffered at 
the hands of mobs, murderers, scoundrels, bank-wreckers, absconders 



651 

of trust funds, etc., may be recompensed and that the guilty may 
be punished with that measure of punishment or suffering which 
they caused or meted out to others. 

The next subject we examined was that of the Infallibility of 
the Pope. We saw in the instance of the late Pontiff, Leo XIII, 
that there is nothing in the claim of the Church that "the Pope, 
as successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, by virtue of the 
promises of Jesus Christ, is preserved from error of judgment 
when he promulgates to the Church a decision on faith or morals" 
(31:149). I will give two instances wherein it may be plainly seen 
that the Holy Father, Leo XIII, of whom a priest, at a banquet 
in response to the toast Leo XIII, said that "Leo, by his colossal 
intellect and inspired wisdom, has drawn the world to him," etc., 
(19:May 8, 1903), was not preserved from error, notwithstanding the 
statement of a priest that he is a person of "colossal intellect and 
inspired wisdom." Here are the instances: 

"He alone is able to fulfill the duties of a Christian life who 
has -put on Christ, and Christ is not put on except by the fre- 
quentation of the Eucharistic table" (53: April 4, 1900). 

"In October, 1883, our Holy Father, Leo XIII, issued his first 
encyclical on the devotion of the Holy Rosary. Since that time 
he has given us many letters on the same devotion, all animated 
with the same lofty sentiments of faith in the efficacy of this 
prayer and zeal for its propogation among the faithful. His Holi- 
ness enjoined that during the month of October the Eosary * * * 
should be recited in all the churches and chapels" (53:Oct. 9, 1901). 

Now, are not those two instances plain errors, in view of the 
fact that Christ must be put on through the operation of the mind 
by an act of the will, and that it is utterly impossible for any be- 
ing, however glorified, excepting God Almighty, to listen to over 46,000 
petitions at one and the same time — siaiultaneously, every second 
of time from one end of the year to the other? If then a Pope, 
with a "colossal intellect and inspired wisdom," and an "eagle eye" 
(54:29, Sept., 1902), as another priest spoke of him, is not preserved 
"from error of judgment when he promulgates to the Church a 
decision on faith," by erroneously teaching how to put on Christ, 
and enjoining that the Rosary should be recited daily in all churches 
and chapels, which would require the Blessed Virgin, to whom the 
Rosary is addressed, principally, to listen to over 46,000 petitions 



652 

every second of time, — not taking into consideration that she would 
have to do the same number of things in addition were she to in- 
tercede for us at the same rate, — then was any Pope ever preserved 
from error? a. f. y. 

It may be seen then that the doctrine of the Infallibility of 
the Pope has no truth in it and that it is only a human invention, 
like many other things are in the Catholic Church. 

The next proposition we considered was that the Catholic Church 
was no more Apostolic than the Protestant . Church is. TVe 
saw, from the Church's own writings, that doctrines and practices 
were introduced into the Church hundreds of years after Jesus and 
the Apostles had come and gone, and that there is no truth in her 
claims that "She is Apostolic, for she accepts no doctrine which does 
not come from the Apostles" (5:348), and in "If anything is pro- 
mulgated or definitely decreed by the Church as being part of the 
faith, the meaning is that this was a thing which the Apostles 
themselves believed and preached" (45:59), and that "All revelation 
came fr©m God alone through His insjjired ministers, and it was 
complete at the beginning of the Church" (31:149). 

We saw that such an important doctrine as, "I will grant the 
grace of final penitence to those who communicate on the first Fri- 
day of nine consecutive months" (53: Nov. 13, 1901), "does not 
come from the Apostles," nor was it "a thing which the Apostles 
themselves believed and preached," but that it was revealed, "In 
the year 1675, whilst she [Margaret Mary] was one day in prayer 
before the Blessed Sacrament, our Lord appeared to her" (5.428) 
and made that promise to her. We saw that the Rosary, "one of 
the most profitable devotions," was not revealed by "God alone," 
but was "revealed to St. Dominic by the Divine Mother herself, 
about the beginning of the thirteenth century" (43:470). We also 
saw that the Catholic worship or religious service is in reality more 
of a "gratuitous insult to God," more "heretical" and more of a 
"mere spectacle" than is the Protestant worship or religious service. 

In the short summary made so far, has it not been made ap- 
parent that there never will be, if people will not throw the "arms 
of the intellect" — God — given faculties as well as faith may be — 
under the feet of faith or make them a "dethroned king," — a return 
of the Protestant Church to that of the Catholic Church, or a re- 
union with her on her terms — "the highway of submission?" 



653 

"Facts are as they are, and their consequences will be what 
they will be. One thing is sure — the church, Catholic and Apos- 
tolic, [As I proved her to be Apostolic] will not change. This 
must be kept always in mind. It does no good to deceive ourselves 
or others; for good and all the doctrines are fixed. [Well, it is to 
be seen if they are "fixed."] * * * The church has laid down 
her laws and her dogma; she settled them for all time. [Or, at 
least, until she reads this book.] Come what will, she can never 
retract them to please any parties. Individuals may talk as they 
list; [Which I am doing with the "arms of the intellect."] she has 
said her mind, and there it stands, four square against all the 
winds of heaven. [Which are probably not as powerful to "raze" 
her as one shot out of the cannon loaded with ammunition of the 
"arms of the intellect."] There is but one way of re-union — the 
highioay of submission (Italics are mine.). To dream of compro- 
mise on her part is to dream of fairies and fairyland" (16: — ). 
[What a fine Elysian field's smoke that will make one day for the 
writer should he live long enough to have to put that in his pipe 
and smoke it"] 

Will the Church, in defiance of the facts, as proven with the 
"arms of the intellect," "not change" on the doctrines of the Mass 
and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, as she now holds them? 
Will any one, after reading this book, still believe that the Blessed 
Virgin can listen to and hear over 46,000 petitions every second of 
time from one end of the year to the other, and still continue to 
pray to her, asking her to intercede for one? 

If then we take out of the Catholic church the Mass and the 
worship and invocation of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints, what 
is there then that would very much distinguish the Catholic wor- 
ship or religious service from that of the Protestant? With those 
two doctrines and practices taken out of the Catholic church what 
is there that would very much distinguish the Catholic religion 
from that of the Protestant? If there is nothing, — with those two 
doctrines and practices taken out of the Catholic church, — that 
would very much distinguish the Catholic church from the Protest- 
ant church, then why not unite and have a church which teaches 
the plain and simple religion of humanity that Jesus taught? 

Is there really any sense in having any other than a One 
Church for all those who believe in a God, in the leadership of 



654 

Jesus Christ and in a life beyond the grave? There is certainly 
but the one right way to be a Christian and that must be the way 
that reason, intellect and common sense — "arms of the intellect" — 
would point out. 

Does Grod then inspire these contradictions, in answer to prayer 
for light, wisdom and understanding to know His Truth, that He 
leads one into the Catholic church and another into the Protestant 
church? If one reads what converts to either of the two churches 
have to say one would have to believe that He did? 

The cause of the diversity of beliefs lies in the fact that we 
have placed more credence in so-called infallible authorities — The 
Catholic in his church, and the Protestant in his Bible— than in the 
"arms of the intellect." God surely would not contradict Himself 
by asking us to believe, on the strength of faith — a supposed gift 
from God, — that which the Catholic church or the Bible teaches, 
if the "arms of the intellect," — also a gift from God, — tells us it is 
an error, an impossibility, or a blasphemy, would He? And are not 
the doctrines of eternal punishment, the Atonement, the Mass, and 
Purgatory according to Catholic teaching, blasphemies? Is not the 
doctrine of the invocation of the Blessed Virgin an impossible 
doctrine, when she would have to hear over 46,000 petitions every 
second of time from one end of the year to the other, were she to 
hear all the petitions addressed to her? And will God require us, 
by faith through the Catholic church, to believe that which the 
"arms of the intellect" tells us is an utter impossibility? I, for one, 
do not believe that He will. 

Are not the doctrines of Confession, Indulgences, the Infalli- 
bility of the Pope and the Apostolicity — teaching only that which 
the "Apostles themselves believed and preached" — of the Roman 
Catholic Church, errors? 

If then I have succeeded, with the "arms of the intellect," in 
purging the Catholic Church of errors, idolatries, superstitions and 
blasphemies, and bringing her up to the platform of Christian 
Unity, or Union of the Churches, but should not quite have suc- 
ceeded in getting her or the Protestant Churches on the platform, 
then I trust that that which will follow will drive them on it. 

The first subjects that we come to, in our continuation of our 
summary, and which will concern both the Catholic and the 
Protestant churches, is that of the Deity of Christ and the Trinity. 



655 

We saw that Jesus is not God, being but the incarnation, the 
fleshly manifestation of the Word of Grod, the Logos, the Christ of 
Grod, just as this book is the material manifestation of my thoughts, 
sentiments, convictions — in other words, the "word" of John Hunkey. 
We saw that as Jesus is not Grod there were then no three co- 
eternal, co-equal and consubstantial Divine Persons, and that the 
doctrines of the Deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity are errors. 
(I see a, Unitarian Christian now getting on the platform of the 
One Church saying to himself: "I knew I was right on the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, which I always disbelieved"). 

The next subjects we analyzed was that of Original Sin and 
Baptism. We saw that if Original Sin were a fact, and Grod cre- 
ates directly every soul, that God would deliberately create soiils 
for hell if they "come 'into the world already sullied with sin and 
as enemies to God" (5:867), and if from nothing, nothing comes, 
without the intervention of God, for "regenerated" parents could 
not transmit that which they have not — that is original sin. We 
saw that Baptism is really nothing but an initiatory rite and has 
no spiritual effect on the soul. [I see a Mormon and Dr. Dowie 
with one foot each, now, on the platform of the One Church. The 
next subject will, probably, land the Doctor on it with both feet 
or else make him run away from it as the men run who, as the 
soured old dyspeptic pessimists would have us believe, are "chased" 
by the women who want to marry] . 

The next subject we considered was that of the Devil. We 
saw that as Lucifer, who is supposed to have been the first devil, 
could sin without a devil to tempt him that we could do the same. 
We saw that our misfortunes, diseases or sicknesses are not the 
work of the devil, but that they are the result of our own or 
other's carelessness, thoughtlessness or indiscretions, etc. We saw 
that our so-called "concupiscences" — the emotions, instincts and 
passions, are inherent in us, impelling us to gratify them, and that 
we are endowed with a reason, free will and power to do as we 
choose to, with which to govern and use them within the limits of 
"their legitimate domain." If we do otherwise then it becomes 
wrong and sinful. 

We saw that the temptation of Jesus was an inward mental 
trial and was not a temptation by a iDersonal devil. We also saw 
that the Bible contradicts itself on the subject of the devil, for it 



656 

says that the devil is "reseiTed under darkness in everlasting 
chains" (Jude. 6), and that "the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth 
about, seeking whom he may devour" (I. Pet. 5:8). We know that 
a being cannot be chained down and at the same time go about 
like a lion. That is an impossibility is it not? Therefore a con- 
tradiction in the Bible, and makes a personal devil a myth, does 
it not? a. f. y. (I see a Christian Scientist now casting a wistful 
glance at the platform of the One Church). 

Since the chapter, in this book, on the Devil was printed I 
received a *booklet entitled "The Gold Standard in Theology," by 
John Shaver, Kirksville, Mo., from which I will make a few quo- 
tations that you may see that others have also discerned, as I have, 
what it is that tempts us if there is no devil that does that. 

"I never believed 

That God was deceived, 
And His plan of creation defeated, 

By a meddlesome snake 

For an old Dragon's sake 
Befqre the work was completed. 

^i ^ ^ 

T'was the serpent of lust, [Emotions, appetites, etc.] 

N(>t the snake of the dust, 
That tempted mankind to its fall; 

Not a visible guise, 

That dazzled the eyes. 
But animal nature [Concupiscences] is all. 

These figures of speech 

Are intended to teach, 
That the thought of lust gratification. 

Is the snake [Devil] that beguiles, 

Deceives and defiles. 
And brings upon all, condemnation. 
, The world ought to know 

That the soul's greatest foe 
Never comes and attacks from without, 

That the power of sin 

Always comes from within, 
As in Scripture we oft read about. 



657 

In Luke seventeen 

The fact may be seen 
That the Kingdom of God is within you, 

And while the dragon of sin [Concupiscences] 

Is also within 
The warfare in Heaven will continue. 

—[Luke 17, 20, 2i 

But when from this Heaven 

The Dragon is driven, 
By the angels of truth and of love, 

Then Christ in His might 

With the truth and the light 
Will reign as in Heaven above. 

* * * 

—[Revelations 12: 9, 10. 

In James one fourteen 

It is plain to be seen 
How evil temptations are wrought, 

And the following verse 

Goes on to rehearse 
The penalty evil has brought. 

* * * 

—[James 1: 14, 15. 

Each human soul 

Has a dragon to control, 
In its animal passions and lust, 

And much sorrow we'll miss 

If we learn to do this, • 

As many are doing, I trust." 

* * * 

— [Galatians 5: 16-25. 

"The body is the flesh, the animal body. Its sustenance, pres- 
ervation and propagation is accomplished by the appetites, passions 
and lusts. To live by these motives for their own sake is to live 
by the spirit of evil" (pp. 5-9)— which means "outside the limits of 
its legitimate domain" (22:861). 

Now, is not all that in agreement with my theory of tempta- 
tions, as I have given it in this book? And do you not think then 



658 

that it is about time that the doctrine of a devil should be relegated 
to the museum of myths? Has it not been the cause of much in- 
fidelity and unbelief? Read what more Mr. Shaver has to say on 
the subject: 

"I believe that the common doctrine as taught by the creeds 
of a personal devil, or Grod of evil, who has forced sin into the 
worid contrary to God's will, thereby frustrating and spoiling Grod's 
plan of creation, has made more infidels, and keeps more thinking 
men out of the churches than any other error that has crept into 
the Christian religion, and there is nothing that would do more to 
give new life and power to Christianity, and draw men of intelli- 
gence into the churches, [Of course, he means into the "One 
Church."] than to discard this relic of heathen mythology" (pp. 10, 
11). "From ancient times the human mind has been harassed by 
the belief in spooks, hobgoblins, witches and doctrines of devils. 
The 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries witnessed the death of 
thousands of wretched people at the hands of the Princess of the 
infernal regions known as the witch, but early in the eighteenth 
century she came to her death by legal process; since that time the 
devil has been a widower, and I believe that the twentieth century 
will witness the death of the old Devil himself" (p. 1). 

Well I believe after the people once read this book, will not 
throw away "the arms of the intellect" and will do a little think- 
ing for themselves, that the twentieth century vnll have a day on 
which it will hold memorial services over his mythical corpse with 
his head crushed with the "arms of the intellect," instead of with 
the heel of the Blessed Virgin or by her "seed" and then say his 
nature could not "be altered" (55: Dec. 4, 1901). Do you hot 
think so? 

The next subject we examined was that of the Resurrection. 
We saw that it, as Jesus meant it, had reference to a conscience 
or soul that had become seared, dead in the grave of sin, and did 
not mean a re-creation — which in reality it would be^or a resur- 
rection of a disintegrated body of dust which might be scattered 
over the world. We saw from the writings of theologians that the 
disembodied souls of believers "do enjoy inconceivable blessedness 
and glory, even while they remain separated from their bodies" 
(18:103); that "To Grod the death of man is but the passing from 
one state of existence to another" (39:67), and that souls in 



659 

purgatory suffer pains that are "greater than all pains of earth put 
together" (11:380). If that is a fact, then why the need of the 
soul to be re-united with "flesh and blood" that "cannot possess the 
kingdom of God" (I. Cor. 15:50)? 

We saw, also, that Ke-incamation is an impossibility— thereby 
making a teaching of Theosophy an error— because, if souls are of 
like substance, one soul cannot enter the body of another without 
displacing the soul already inhabiting that body, just as water 
cannot be poured into a jar already filled with water— and a body 
without a soul in it would be dead— without displacing the water 
already filling the jar. Is that not so? It may be seen then that 
bodily Resurrection and Re-incarnation are errors, are they not? 
a. f. y. (I see a Spiritualist now with one foot on the platform of 
the One Church). 

Now comes a subject which we examined, that ought to about 
land all churches, with both feet, on the platform of the One 
Church, and that is the Bible. Surely, if there is any one thing 
that ought to induce the different church denominations to lay aside 
their differences in Essentials and non-essentials, and unite, is when 
their authority is attacked and declared to be not wholly ikfallible 
Without a complete— from "cover to cover"— infallible authority on 
which to rest their teachings then on what may they not rest? It 
may be the same as with a person who holds a forged or spuri- 
ous deed to a certain piece of property. The instrument of title 
would not be worth the paper it is written on. So likewise is it 
with an authority that can be interpreted in a hundred or more 
ways,— as the churches that are now dissimilar to one another 
furnish proofs of that fact. 

Surely if God left us a written Book that is fully inspired it 
ought to be couched in such plain and comprehensive language 
that there could be no question, possible, as to what His will or 
law IS. If He spoke in plain and unmistakable language, through 
the emotion of love, the parental instinct and the procreative pas- 
sion, to man and woman, what was His will and design in creat- 
ing the male and the female, and what they should do to perpetu 
ate their species, could He not likewise, in plain and unmistaka- 
ble language, speak to man through certain faculties as to what is 
His will and law in the moral and spiritual realm? And if it is 
claimed that He does thus speak to us in the Bible, then why is 



660 

it that there is a Baptist, a Christian, a Christian Catholic 
[Dowieite], a Christian Science, a Congregational, an Episcopal, a 
Lutheran, a Methodist, a Mormon, a Presbyterian, a Roman Cath- 
olic, etc., church in nearly every town or city in this country, when 
each one of them claims that its teachings and doctrines have their 
source and foundation in an infallible authority — the Bible? 

Does God, for instance, through His Word, tell one church that 
Baptism is necessary for the salvation of infants, and another 
church that it is "solemn mockery" to baptize them? Does he tell 
one church that Baptism is to be by sprinkling; another that it is 
by one immersion; another that it is by three immersions and an- 
other that it is not necessary at all for salvation? Yet the differ- 
ent churches teaching such unlike doctrines and practices all claim 
"Scriptural warrant" for them. What is an unbeliver to do then 
in a case like that? All cannot be right. The only thing to do 
then is to use the "arms of the intellect." And that is what I did, 
with the result that I made the discovery that the Bible is not^ 
from "cover to cover," an infallible guide or teacher, just as I 
discovered that the Roman Catholic Church is not an infallible 
teacher of truths, notwithstanding her claims to the contrary. 

We will now summarize our short examination and analysis of 
the Bible, made in another chapter of this book: 

We saw that the Bible is a much humanly gotten up book 
because the Bibles of the Catholic and the Protestant churches are 
not alike, which is an incontrovertible fact that the Bible is not a 
plenary inspired authority. We saw that the Bible contains moral 
filth that is liable to poison, on reading it, the mind of a pure- 
minded man or woman. 

We saw that it is a woman-degrading book, and makes it ap- 
pear that life to woman in the old dispensation meant principally 
feeding and breeding. We saw that some of its characters, who were 
sensual, cruel, vindictive and murderous, were "chosen people" of 
G-od. We saw that it blasphemed God in that it made Him the 
author of the command to the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites, 
whose "abominations," in the end, could not have been very much 
worse than those of the Israelites were, according to the Bible 
records, and to which I referred in the chapter on the Bible. We 
saw that it flatly contradicts itself in more than one place. 

We saw that it used language that does not mean that which 



661 

is comriJonly attributed to the meaning of the same words outside 
of the Bible. We saw that the Catholic Church would hardly go 
into spasms should the Bible be relegated to the museum of an- 
tiquity, because Tradition would fit her doctrines and practices bet- 
ter. We saw that it was like wax and could be molded to fit any 
doctrine for which one wants "warrant of Scripture." We saw that 
the authors of some of its books are in doubt, and may have been 
written by men not commissioned by Jesus to teach Christianity, 
and who may not have been divinely inspired. 

I believe enough has been said on the subject to make it ap- 
parent to any fair, impartial, intelligent and reasonable mind, that 
a book, such as our short review of it has shown it to be, cannot 
be regarded as plenary inspired from "cover to cover." And are 
not the many church denominations, which base their dissimilar 
doctrines on its authority, a corroborative proof of such an asser- 
tion? 

If you Protestant churches want to prove to the world that 
my assertions are groundless, then prove it by having a One 
Church which bases its doctrines and practices on the teachings 
of a "One Infallible Bible!" When you do that then the world 
will be ready to believe that my assertions, concerning the Bible, 
are groundless. Which of the two horns of the dilemma will you 
take, a One Church, with One Infallible Bible, or many churches, 
with no Infallible Bible, on which to rest your dissimilar doctrines 
and i)ractices? 

As I already stated that if I do not succeed in bringing about 
Catholic and Protestant Christian Unity, then I, at least, hope to 
bring about the Union of the Protestant churches. But if the 
"arms of the intellect," God-given faculties to be used and not to 
be thrown under the feet of a man-made Faith, or be made a 
"dethroned king," shall reign supreme, then I feel confident that 
there will be a union of the Catholic and Protestant churches, and 
that there will rise on the ruins of both of them a One Church 
which will teach the plain and simple religion of humanity which 
was taught by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Are all of you 
ready for such a church? 

I know it is the wish and prayer of all earnest and sincere 
Christians that such a consummation as Christian Unity may be- 
come a fact one day. And is this not about as opportune a time 



662 

as any for Christian Unity, when church denominations are begin- 
ning to merge, and are, in their general and other assemblies, be- 
ginning to revise or recommend the revision of God-dishonoring, 
blasphemous doctrines and creeds conceived and formulated during 
times of apparent intellectual darkness, fanaticism and religious dis- 
sensions and persecutions? 

See also what an advantage that would be to be united. True 
Christianity could then demand its just rights and would not have 
to truckle to Atheism, Agnosticism and unbelief as it does now in 
matters of Christian education; the inculcating of morality, cleanli- 
ness and sobriety into the young during their growing period when 
the seeds of future habits are sown; the regulation, along the lines 
suggested in this book, of the liquor traffic which causes more pov- 
erty, hunger, raggedness, disgrace, suffering, misery and heart-breaks 
in gentle, noble and delicate women and to innocent, helpless and 
tender children than any other agency in the world. And then ' to 
think that even some Christians can be in such a debasing, debauch- 
ing, degrading, demoralizing, detestable, devilish and vice and crime 
and poverty breeding business as running a sal-o-o-n! 

If there is anything that I hate and detest it is the saloon, not 
because it affects me or mine — for it does not — but because of its 
effects I have seen on others. 

As much as I hate and detest the saloons I do not condemn or 
denounce those who conduct them, for no doubt nine times out of 
ten it was circumstances and environment that forced or led them 
into the saloon business. 

Therefore, I believe, that with Christian Unity a fact we woiild 
in time become powerful enough to so change the circumstances 
and environments, which now lead people into the saloon business, 
that it would then lead them out of it instead. And who would 
not just as soon see the drink curse destroyed as to see any other 
practical and useful reform, which would benefit many women and 
children and society at large, inaugurated, or even as soon as to see 
Christian Unity a fact? It would, indeed, be a heartless wretch who 
would oppose the effort for a final and general destruction of the 
drink curse. 

With Christian Unity we could also amend the Constitution so 
that the public school fund be apportioned for two classes of 
schools; [saving Catholics about twenty million dollars annually] 



663 

one in which only secular education may be had as now, and the 
other where Christian — not the present orthodox Christianity — and 
moral education would be given in connection with a secular edu- 
cation that is practical and useful and which does not so tax the 
brain of every child, — who cannot, at the most, ever expect to be- 
come more than an ordinary business man, mechanic or clerk, — as 
to ruin its health. 

With two such schools, the maintenance of which would cost 
taxpayers no more than two schools of the one kind now costs 
them, then those to whom the thought of the existence of God is 
a bugaboo, which is a venerable nightmare to them, and who teach 
their children the non-existence of God (23:723, June 6, 1901), and 
who think it shows "the highest intellectual progress" to believe 
in the absurd theories, which I pointed out in this book, of athe- 
istic and agnostic evolution for the origin of life, man and things 
in the universe, could send their children to that branch of the 
public schools which would turn out well educated brains and 
intellects, without a conscience, so that they would know how the 
more easily to commit depredations, — regarding them only as "con- 
ventional crimes" when they are caught or found out, — against 
their fellowmen and against society and escape punishment through 
various ways, techincalities, statute of limitations, etc. 

Having mentioned "statute of limitations," leads me to ask, 
On what base does such a law rest? I dare say that it does not 
rest on honesty, justice and on God's law. On the law of God 
and honesty and justice no dead beat's honest debts are barred 
from payment by statute of limitations until they are paid; no 
note given, for value received, is barred from collection until it is 
paid; no briber, boodler, bankwrecker, etc., is immune from pun- 
ishment until punished! What are many of our laws but aids to 
help out and protect, as a rule, sharp, well educated brains and 
intellects without a conscience? Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Well then let us elect men to our law making assemblies who 
are not conscience seared and who will enact laws based on honesty, 
justice and righteousness — God's law — which will punish a violator 
of law when found out no matter if that violation of law did take 
place such a number of years in the past as to be beyond the 
time of the "statute of limitations" of a law passed by a lot of 
well educate'd brains without a conscience, and who say that some 



664 

wrongs committed against the family, the state and society are 
only "conventional crimes," which ought not to be punished. If 
we do that and they enact such laws then we will, probably, have 
fewer violations of law. When we once have Christian Unity then 
we may and can easily elect men to office who will enact such 
laws and who will do right from principle no matter how great 
the temptation, and the tease to hide it, may be to do otherwise 
than right. 

We will then also elect men of principle as judges — not tin- 
horn politicians or pettifogging lawyers as is sometimes the case 
now — who will not appoint political friends or unscrupulous lawyers 
as receivers for insolvent men and institutions, allowing them com- 
pensation that is from five to ten times as much as they j)ossibly 
could or would earn otherwise during the same length of time as 
that of the receivership, thus appropriating to themselves the 
assets of unfortunate men or firms, or of their creditors, that 
become financially embarrassed. It is a most monstrous outrage 
the way some judges allow such enormous compensation to receivers 
and to lawyers for services rendered in cases where men or con- 
cerns become financially or otherwise embarrassed. Is that not 
so? a. f. y. 

That then would be, no doubt, one of the advantages to be 
derived from Christian Unity when it once becomes a fact. Chris- 
tian Unity would also remove many prejudices which now exist in 
family, social and business circles. 

We could then act spontaneously, without reserve, and would 
not have to be on our guard so as not to do or say anything that 
would cause a shock to the different religious sentiments of this or 
that person. As it is now the name of Grod must not be mentioned 
with reverence in any place except in the church for fear it would 
cause adverse comment or would make one appear to be a religious 
sentimentalist. 

No doubt Christian Unity would also bring joy, unity and more 
happiness to many married couples between whom there exists now 
a difference of religious beliefs. Courting may then also have a 
barrier removed which now, no doubt, prevents many a courtship 
which might result in a happy marriage. If love otherwise knows 
no "locksmiths" is it not then senseless and foolish that a difference 



665 

of religious belief should, in some cases, stand in the way of letting 
love result in marriages which might otherwise be happy? 

It is because we have made the intellect a dethroned king or 
have thrown it under the feet of faith or have rejected it as Luther 
did, that is the cause of so much senseless, foolish and useless dif- 
ferences of religious beliefs as there exists now, as though there 
were more than one God, Jesus Christ and heaven, each one re- 
quiring a different way of serving and of attainment. Is that not so? 

Well then let us use the intellect, — reason, understanding, 
carnal arguments, mathematical proofs and common sense, God- 
given faculties created and designed by Him for us to use, — put 
our heads together and see what we can accomplish in the way of 
doing away with a lot of ecclesiastical millinery and theological 
embroidery which has about buried, under an avalanche of error, 
idolatry, superstition, blasphemy, nonsense and absurdity, the plain, 
simple and comprehensive religion of humanity taught by Jesus 
Christ. If we did that then I believe we would have but One 
Church, and this world would then soon be changed from a "vale 
of tears" to a place where we could have a foretaste of heaven. 

Many other benefits and advantages, besides those already men- 
lioned, would, no doubt, ensue as a result of the making of Chris- 
tian Unity a fact. 

Are you ready then to enlist in the service of bringing about 
Christian Unity or are your pet theories, opinions and beliefs so 
deeply rooted in you that you cannot, without passing through a 
period of intense suffering as I did before I would yield up some 
of mine, give up some of them so as to meet a part of the way 
any who have differed from you in the past but who are willing, 
for the sake of unity, to give up some of theirs in order to meet 
you on the way to a common platform on which all rational, rea- 
sonable and thinking people can stand without mental reservation, 
submission of the understanding or the rejecting and the dethorn- 
ing of the intellect? If you are ready, then if you strive to bring 
about Christian Unity who knows but that you may live to see the 
day of the fulfillment of our Lord's prayer "That they all may be 
one" (John 17:21). 

How nice that would be, you will probably say, if such a con- 
43ummation you could behold ere you left this plane of existence. 
Yet is such a thing an impossibility if we should use reason, un- 
derstanding, mathematical proofs and common sense — "the arms of 



666 

the intellect" — in investigating and weighing our old, tenacious 
pet theories, opinions and religious beliefs? a. f. y. 

We will now continue our summary; Christian Science being 
the next subject which we considered. We saw that it effected 
cures, — which misleads people into believing in C. S., — not accord- 
ing to Christ, but according to suggestion ["You are well, and you 
know it" (124:229)], auto-suggestion ["The physical affirmation of 
disease should always be met with the mental negation" (190:391), 
"Meet the incipient stages of diseases with such powerful eloquence 
as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman 
law" (109:380)], and the application of its principle — the stopping 
the drugging of the system with medicine which are a hindrance 
to the free operation of the recuperative energies and the healing 
laws of nature inherent in all living beings be it man or animal. 

We saw where patients with a so-called incurable disease, in 
the hands of niateria medica^ would be healed by trying C. S., 
which would stop the taking or giving of medicines more or less 
poisonous which materia niedica was prescribing, that being about 
all that was needed to effect a healing. 

We saw that our senses are not deceitful, in testifying to facts, 
within the scope of usefulness to us. If the senses were deceitful 
then how could one read even Science and Health, the text-book 
of C. S., with any profit? If them the sense of sight is not an 
hallucination when they see the letters in Science and Health which 
make np the words "The author takes no patients, and declines 
medical consultation" (109:XII), and which would therefore make it 
useless for any sick person to go to Concord, N. H. to see the author 
of Science and Health for the purpose of having a medical consul- 
tation with her, must then not the sense of feeling also testify 
truthfully when it tells one that one suffers from the pains of neu- 
ralgia or inflammatory rheumatism and is therefore not an illusion 
or hallucination, and that the swellings and pains are just as real 
as the letters are real in S. and H. composing the words of the above' 
notice from its author. Is that not so? 

If you have not made the intellect a dethroned king can you 
then, if not a Christian Scientist, ever believe in the teachings of 
C. S. as regards the deceitfulness of the senses or the hallucina- 
tions and illusions of pains, diseases and sicknesses? 

If then your sense of sight is not deceitful when you see the 



667 

letters in S. and H. which compose the author's notice, already 
mentioned, then is the same sense — the eyes — deceived when seeing 
a boil, a cancer, an inflamed and swollen rheumatic joint, a "kink 
in the back," etc., etc.? If not deceived, then does not C. S. blas- 
pheme God when it says our senses are deceitful? For who but 
God created the senses if He is the "only cause" and Creator 
(109:182)? And is it not blasphemy then to say that He created 
and endowed us with senses that are deceitful? a. f. y. 

We saw that God created matter, made it passive, made man 
active, endowing him with a reason, understanding, free will, will- 
power and power of choice to use matter as he chooses to and that 
God is not responsible for disasters caused through matter by the 
careless, heedless, thoughtless and indiscreet use man makes of it, 
and that He does not will, send or decree, any one poverty, disease, 
sickness or premature physical death. We saw that disease, sick- 
ness, etc., are realities, being punishments, as a sequence to a cause, 
for violations of God's laws, be that physical, moral or spiritual. 
We saw that sin is a reality and derived its "substance and reality" 
(58:179, Nov. 22, 1900) when God gave man a commandment, the 
obeying of which is a virtue that is real, and the disobeying of 
which is a sin which is just as real as is the virtue in obeying. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

We saw that it is full of errors, absurdities, contradictions, in- 
consistencies, fanaticisms and blasphemies, and that it makes the 
intellect a dethroned king as a prerequisite necessary to the believ- 
ing in it. And because I was willing finally, through intense 
suffering, to pull the wool from my eyes, which had blinded me 
up to my thirty-seventh year of age, and had elevated the noble 
God-given faculty of the intellect and crowned it supreme instead 
of leaving it "under the feet of faith" (5:409) or a "dethroned 
king" (58:188, Nov. 22, 1900) or rejecting it as Luther did (15:488), 
that I could not digest all the "verbiage" of C S., just as I could 
not digest all the "verbiage" of Catholicism, Dowieism, Theosophy, 
the Bible, Agnosticism, Evolution, Atheism, Socialism, Single Tax, 
etc., and which led me finally to analyze and assail and reject 
much that is to be found in all of them. 

If C. S. is consistent in what it teaches it certainly cannot be 
offended in what I have said about it if man "has no separate 
mind from God" (109:471), and is no "independent worker" 



668 

(109:159). Is that not so? Well we will see if they will be 
offended at me or not, and if not, then I ought to be the most 
welcomed in their homes of any one in the city, especially so 
if they reverse "the testimony of the physical senses" [ears and 
eyes] (109:14) when they hear about what this book has to say, 
or read it themselves, concerning C. S. that would seem to "theo- 
logical mythoplasm" (59:142-152), who have not made the intellect 
a dethroned king, as grossly irreverent, insulting, scoffing, humorous, 
flippant, offensive, etc., etc., while to the Christian Scientist it 
ought to seem just the reverse, namely, highly reverent, respectful, 
complimentary, serious, earnest, agreeable, etc., etc. Is that not 
so? a. f. y. 

We saw that a redeeming feature of C. S. is the cultivation of 
cheerfulness and the eschewing the "loquacious tattling" about dis- 
eases and misfortunes, which have a more or less depressing effect 
on health, so much indulged in by others, but which I believe we 
could all do likewise without denying the testimonies of the senses, 
the reality of matter, etc., etc. Another thing that I like in C. S . 
is the way of praying in its public worship. Instead of having 
some one pray audibly for all, making sometimes, as some do when 
praying, only a display of oratorical powers and eloquence, wheed- 
ling and humoring God like one would a child, or vain, conceited, 
emi)ty-headed society snobs who have walked on all fours like ani- 
mals, instead of spontaneously uttering the wants, desires and feel- 
ings of the heart, the Christian Scientists pray silently all ending 
their prayers with the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer. 
Another thing I like in C. S. is the way it has its communion 
service. They then get on their knees in their pews and meditate 
on and contemplate the sufferings of Jesus without the material 
accompaniments of bread and wine, and with their eyes closed, 
which is the only and proper way to do that. In that they seem 
not to have made the intellect a dethroned king as they must do in 
many other things they believe in if they are consistent in their beliefs. 

Is there really any necessity, in commemorating the sufferings 
of Jesus or in showing our brotherly love for our fellowmen, that 
we must partake of a piece of bread and a sip of wine in order 
to do so? Have not reformed drunkards gone from the Lord's 
table, where they partook of wine, and went direct to ruin? Here 
is the proof of such a fact: 



669 

"A most exemplary young man, a reformed inebriate, who had 
not tasted liquor for nearly two years, went directly from the Lord's 
table to buy drink and after a two day's debauch, in a fit of insane 
remorse, shot himself" (38:912, Nov. 7, 1900). Of course, that no 
doubt, is an extreme case, but does it not show that danger lurks 
in the Communion wine? 

It is these supposed symbolic rites that do no one a particle of 
good which keeps many common-sense and thinking people from 
affiliating themselves with the church. If one really wants to med- 
itate on or contemplate or commemorate the sufferings and death 
of Jesus does one need the assistance of material elements? Or, 
if one wants to show brotherly love towards one's fellowmen 
can one not do that by kind words, a cheerful greeting, sympathy 
and consideration without eating a piece of bread or taking a sip of 
wine with them in a house of worship? 

When Jesus, in Matt. 25:34-40, speaks of the greeting with 
which some will be welcomed at the last day, did He there say: 
"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you: for you commemorated, with bread and wine, my suffer- 
ings; you showed your brotherly love for your fellowmen, by eat- 
ing bread and drinking wine with them in my house of worship?" 
No, He did not, but He said: "I was hungry, and ye gave me to 
eat; I was thirsty, ajid ye gave me to drink;" etc. 

Now that does not necessarily mean only food and drink, etc., 
for the physical, but also when a person hungers or thirsts for a 
kind word that that be given; or hungers for a cheerful greeting 
and a smile that that be given; or hungers for the spirit of "live 
and let live" that that be given by the cut price advertising depart- 
ment and other stores; by employers of labor so that girls and 
others, who are strangers in a city and who must work for a living, 
may earn enough that they need not be insulted with "You need 
not worry about room rent, I have a room," or, "Get yourself a 
sweetheart," when girls say to employers, to whom they make ap- 
plication for positions and who offer them only pay enough for 
board, that they would have nothing left, after paying for their 
meals, for room rent; or offer them only enough that would pay 
for room and board but leave them nothing with which to buy 
wearing apparel; [The foregoing replies having actually been made 
by employers to girls under the circumstances mentioned.] by labor 



670 

unions who would dictate to employers whom they should or should 
not employ or do business with; etc., etc. 

No doubt I will probably be regarded as too radical on the 
subject of wanting or believing in doing away with an Oriental 
rite Jesus made use of with His apostles, but does not common 
sense say that such a rite is needless and senseless now to the 
educated and enlightened mind? If one wants to show one's 
humility and sympathy and consideration for one's fellowmen can 
one not do so without washing their feet? There is warrant of 
Scripture for the washing of feet under thc>se circumstances, is 
there not? 

"If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, ye 
also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an 
example, that ye also should do as I have done to you" (John 
13:14, 15). 

Are the orthodox churches following the example of Jesus in 
that? Why is that not practiced weekly or monthly or quarterly 
as Communion is practiced in the orthodox churches? I suppose 
it will be said that the washing of feet now, in order to show 
brotherly love towards one's fellowmen, is not needed to do that. 
If then the washing of feet is not necessary — and it is not neces- 
sary — to show our brotherly love then why should the jjartaking 
of a piece of bread and the sipping of wine be* necessary in order 
to commemorate Jesus' last supper with His apostles, His suffer- 
ings and death or of showing our love towards our fellowmen? 
Are not then the Christian Scientists in advance of the orthodox 
churches in that, when they hold their Communion services with- 
out the material bread and wine? a. f. y. 

(I trust Christian Scientists will not regard the senses as 
"deceitful" or reverse their testimonies when they read or hear of 
these commendations which I have just given them, for I do not 
care to have them sever their friendship with me altogether because 
some that I am personally acquainted with are very nice people, 
as there are in all churches, who seem to act differently from that 
which those would with whom the intellect is a dethroned king, 
but I am constrained to speak the truth about their beliefs, even 
though it should offend some, because I believe it is necessary to 
do so if I wish to accomplish my object of bringing about Christian 
Unity, in which I want to include them also.) 



671 

The next subject which we considered was that of Evolution 
as an hypothesis for the origin of all things, the transmutation of 
species, etc., as against the hypothesis of a Special Creation by God. 
We saw that Evolution, as defined by Evolutionists, is utterly 
worthless as an hypothesis as against that of special creation as I 
have defined it. Of course my theory of special creation demolishes 
the "rib" story of the Bible as well as that of the theory of evolu- 
tion, but there is no difficulty in believing that God, in the begin- 
ning created an egg for each male and female of each species, from 
man to animals, letting the sun or natural heat hatch them, and 
endowing them with the emotions, instincts, passions and appetites 
necessary for their propagation and preservation. There ia less 
difficulty — in fact no difficulty — in such a view for the genesis of 
man and animals, etc., than in believing that woman was taken from 
a rib of man, or that man is a transmuted animal, both of which 
would be like begetting unlike. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

Passing the subject of the existence of God, which proposition 
ought to be so well established in this book by this time as to need 
no further support, we will pass to the subjects of Socialism, Sin- 
gle Tax and Anarchy. We saw that there is an underlying element 
in each which is alike applicable to all three of them, that is, force, 
physical or otherwise, in overthrowing the institution of private 
ownersbp in some things. Such a process would place a premium 
on prodigality, shiftlessness, extravagance, intemperance, etc., and a 
discount on thrift, industry, economy, sobriety, self-denial, etc. 

We saw that economic conditions, private ownership of property 
or land values had nothing to do with the poverty of people in nine 
cases out of ten, and that the fault lies in the individuals them- 
selves or in their ancestors, if they are living in poverty and want. 
We saw that one can acquire honestly a million or more dollars in 
a life-time and that the "many advantages of the institutions of 
this country, and aided by the protection of law" (196:50, June, 
1902), had nothing to do with many who became millionaires — 
among which are brewers. 

Of course there is one thing which is squarely against justice 
and God's law and His Fatherhood, and that is giving protection 
to industries with favorable natural advantages. Such protection I 
admit has made some millionaires at the expense of the many. If 
one country has the natural advantages — minerals, materials and 



672 

otherwise — so it can manufacture things cheaper than the same 
things could be manufactured in a country that has not those 
natural advantages, but has the natural advantages for raising sugar, 
grain and livestock, which the mineral and manufacturing country 
has not, then the one country ought to manufacture and the other 
country ought to raise sugar, grain, livestock, etc., and the products 
of each country ought to have as free an interchange with each 
other as different products have between two states of the same 
nation lying beside each other. 

There was a time when I believed in protection, but the deeper 
I got into the subject the more did I see that it is at variance 
with the doctrines of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man, as though all peoples were not God's children, or of His 
creation, as well as are the Americans whom He chose to raise up 
as a great nation to be His "instruments" to bring the light of the 
Gospel to the "benighted peoples" of the earth. 

If God has given one country the natural advantages of mineral 
fuels, etc., for manufacturing, and another that of raising sugar, 
grain, etc., then each country should do that to which it is best 
adapted and the products of each ought to have absolutely free in- 
terchange between each other. 

What do you suppose will be the results in this country in 
fifty years or less from now if there is not a change made soon in 
some of the laws which make a few fabulously wealthy at the ex- 
pense of the many, and we will not let the products of foreign 
countries have free interchange with us and vice versa? 

If we shut out foreign products by prohibitive tariffs where 
will the foreigners in time get the money with which to buy our 
surplus? What is the result already? Are not foreigners flocking 
to this country now (1903) in such numbers as to break all pre- 
vious records of immigration? And why do they flock so to this 
country? Oh, you will say, it is the unexampled prosperity which 
this country is now enjoying. Granting such is the reason, but 
what is usually the result of too much prosperity? Here it is: 

The philosophy of history teaches that prosperity leads to the 
downfall of nations as well as of individuals. * * * It made 
the people luxurious, voluptuous and imbecile. * * * Prosperity 
leads to decay, national, individual, intellectual, moral and physical. 
When prosperity is at its zenith, decay is at the door" (39:193). 



673 

Is that not true when we take into consideration that the 
greater the prosperity the more money and the more money — with 
the majority — means only a fuller gratification and the creation of 
more extravagant tastes and desires that must be satisfied? And if 
there comes a reaction then the greater will be the suffering, for 
too much prosperity with many has caused the neglect of practic- 
ing self-denial and self-restraint, and if the tastes and desires have 
not been kept down to as low a number as possible, — compatible 
with decent, calm and common-sense living, — the greater will be 
the suffering when they cannot be gratified. 

Of course, with free trade the world over some custom officials 
would be without a job, but then we ought to do that which 
would bring the greatest good to the greatest number. Is" that 
not so? 

But the protectionist will probably say that the Americau 
laborer has a higher standard of living than the foreigner has and 
cannot therefore live on as low a plane as the foreigner and that he 
therefore must have higher wages which can be given him only 
under protection. But how about it when the foreigner comes to 
this country to compete with him? You will probably say that 
you will educate him to live on a higher plane and that he will 
therefore require as much pay as the American to live. But is that, 
not going to cost money to educate him thias? If so, then why not 
admit free his product which- he produces in a foreign country so 
that he will have money to stay there and educate himself to a 
higher standard of living, and take our surplus in exchange for his 
manufactured surplus? 

But now the Socialist or the Single Taxer would probably like 
to know my view on the subject of "bonanza" mining kings; 
whether private ownership in natural products, minerals, oils, etc., 
is not, in one sense, a protection of another kind which makes mil- 
lionaires, and whether the government ought not to confiscate, for 
the people at large, the wealth of the miners over a certain amount? 
Supposing then that the government did do that would it not then 
be just as proper to pay the poor prospectors the thousands and 
millions of dollars which they lost in prospecting for minerals, etc., 
which were never found? If the government did pay such losses 
because it confiscated the gains over a certain sum of the fortunate 
prospectors, then why should not every one be entitled to pay from 



674 

the government who lost all their possessions in other business ven- 
tures or by fires, waters, storms, robberies, defalcations, etc.? It 
may be seen then — outside of the few who have, through protec- 
tion, been made fabulously wealthy at the cost of many — that pri- 
vate ownership in iDroperty, land values and economic conditions 
have nothing to do with the poverty and want of some, but that 
the fault, in nine cases out of ten, lies in themselves or was in their 
ancestors. Is that not so? a. f. y. 

That such may be or may have been the ease with many poor 
laboring people, especially, may be seen from the following which 
appeared in an organ of theirs: 

"There is one fault which seems to prevail almost generally with 
all classes of laboriug men, and that is their apparent inability to 
save money. There is no other one thing that will tend to produce 
a feeling of independence in the bosom of a mechanic like the 
thought that he has a few hundred dollars laid aside to tide him 
over any unfortunate time that may occur. But unfortunately the 
man who is sure of drawing his wages every Saturday night does 
not seem to look far enough ahead to lay aside a small portion of 
it. The tendency to live up a salary is a growing one and should 
be overcome: Establish the habit of each week laying aside a small 
portion of your weekly stipend and you will be surjjrised at the 
raj)idity with which your account grows. The first few dollars will 
be the hardest to accumulate, but thereafter it will have become a 
habit and your savings account will become one of the factors in 
your life, and an important one too. Try it for a few monfhs and 
see how beneficial it is" (The Atchison Weekly Union, Aug. 14, 
1903). According to that, is not my contention then about right 
when I say that in most cases of destitution among the laboring 
and other classes of people, is not due to land values, economic 
conditions, etc., but the cause lies in the individuals themselves or 
was in that of their ancestors? 

When the One Church once gets launched, as the result of 
the appearance of this book, and the principle of "live and let 
live" is infused into the hearts of the disciples of Jesus, — and 
those who are the stronger will feel and act toward their weaker 
brethren as though they were their brother's keeper in the sense 
that they will try to persuade them, whenever possible, to avoid 
the ijitfalls of vice, crime and poverty breeding, — then the tariff 



675 

walls, as well as the- sectarian walls, will be torn down and all 
peoples, no matter of what nation, will make free interchange of 
their products, thus giving "natural advantages" free scope as God 
intended it. For all human beings are of His creation and He 
chooses no one nation to become great at the expense and suflPer- 
ing of another. To claim otherwise is only Israelitish. 

The next subjects that we considered was marriage and celi- 
bacy. We saw that marriage is ordained of Grod and is just as 
pleasing and blessed in His sight as virginity or celibacy which 
shuts itself up in cloisters where the moral atmosphere is free from 
the temptations and corruptions of the world, thus sijaring them a 
combat with the temptations, etc., which others must face, and for 
which the latter deserves a crown when victorious. For there is no 
victory without a combat, and where no victory no crown. 

We saw that in one state there is just as much solicitude for 
the things of this world as in the other. That those who entered 
the marriage state complied with the Scriptural injunction of "in- 
crease, and multiply" (Gen. 1:28), and that they showed just as 
much "good taste, beauty and dignity" as those who entered the 
state of perpetual virginity or celibacy. 

It seems to me that it is offering a gratuitous insult to virtu- 
ous men and women to say. Biblically and otherwise, and an im- 
peachment of the wisdom and design of God, that lawful marriage 
and child-births are defiling, unclean and carnal minded things, and 
that they have not the "good taste" nor the fine sense of "beauty" 
nor the appreciation of "dignity" who enter the marriage state as 
those are supposed to have who vow perpetual virginity or celibacy. 
Is that not so? a. f. y. 

The vow of perpetual virginity or celibacy is only a relic of 
the pagan priesthood, who were much like the sensual Israelites 
who "put to death the women, that have carnally known men. [It 
seems Jehovah — who is not the G(>d Who is — specially inspired the 
men so they could tell, without insulting the women by making a 
physical examination or asking them such an insulting question as 
to whether or ncft they have carnally known men, which women had 
or had not carnally known men.] But the girls, and all the women 
that are virgins, [I wonder how the "chaste" Israelites knew which 
of the women who were strangers to them were virgins?] save for 
yourselves" (Num. 41:17, 18), who wanted the maidens for them- 



676 , 

selves. And when the pagan priests wanted to lie with the maidens 
they would tell them that the gods wanted to lie with them. That 
such was the fact may be seen from reading pagan history and from 
the following: 

"Certain shamefiil practices happened about the temple of Isis 
that was at Rome. * * * There was a woman at Rome whose 
name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her an- 
cestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great 
reputation: * * * And although she was of a beautiful counte- 
nance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most 
gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to 
Saturninus, one that was every way answerable to her in an excel- 
lent character. Decius Muridus fell in love with this woman, who 
was a man very high in the equestrian order; and she was of too 
great dignity to be caught by presents, and had already rejected 
them. * * * He was still more inflamed with love [Of the 
Evolutionist's kind] to her, inasmuch as he promised to give her 
two hundred thousand attic drachmae for one night's lodging: and 
when this would not prevail upon her, * * * g. freed-woman of 
his made him to hope, by some promises she gave him that he 
might obtain a night's lodging with Paulina. * * * When she 
had encouraged the young man, and gotten as much money as she 
required, she did not take the same methods as had been taken be- 
fore, because she perceived that the woman was by no means to be 
tempted by money; but as she knew that she was very much given 
to the worship of the goddess Isis, she devised the following strat- 
agem:^ — She went to some of Isis' priests, and upon the strongest 
assurances (of concealment) she persuaded them by words, but 
chiefly by the offer of money, [It seems they required "honorariums" 
too for bartering the comforter.] * * * and told them the pas- 
sion of the young man and persuaded them to use all means pos- 
sible to beguile the woman. * * * Accordingly the oldest of 
them went immediately to Paulina, and upon his admittance, he 
desired to speak with her by herself. When that was granted him, 
he told her that he was sent by the god Anubis, who was fallen in 
love with her, and enjoined her [Under pain of sin, probably,] to 
come to him. Upon this she took the message very kindly, and 
valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis; and told 
her husband that she had a message sent her, and was to sup and. 



677 

' lie with Anubis; so he agreed to her acceptance of the offer, satis- 
fied with the chastity of his wife. [Is it not astonishing what 
control and influence priests of all kinds, and in all ages, have had 
over their blind, credulous and unthinking followers! But thanks 
be to God the wool has been pulled from my eyes so that I can no 
longer be ruled or influenced by any or them! J Accordingly, she 
went to the temple; and after she had supped there, and it was the 
hour to go to sleep, [And for spirits to appear at the call of a 
"Medium,"] the priest shut the doors of the temple; when in the 
holy parts of it, [Well, I should say it was "holy" — to the young 
man.] the lights were also put out. [Just as it is done, no doubt, 
at "Seances."] Then did Mundis leap out (for he was hidden 
therein) and did not fail of enjoying her, [And I suppose she must 
have thought at the time that the god was made very much after 
the likeness of her terrestial husband who was, no doubt, dreaming 
sweet dreams of how his wife was enjoying herself in the paradise 
of the gods.] Who was at his service all the night long, as supposing 
he was the god; and when he was gone away, [Which, no doubt, 
he did do to go away before daylight.] * * * Paulina came 
early to her husband and told him how the god Anubis had ap- 
peared to her" (76:379, Book 4). Now if that god Anubis had 
kept his mouth shut she would never have been the wiser and the 
incident would probably never have become a matter of history. But I 
suppose he felt so highly elated over his success in accomplishing 
his object that he felt bold enough to tell her about it, for "on the 
third day after what had been done, Mundis met Paulina, and said: — 
'Nay, Paulina, thou hast saved me two hundred thousand attic 
drachmae. * * * Yet hast thou not failed to be at my service 
in the manner I invited thee, * * * while I took to myself the 
name of Anubis." Then it says "The emperor Tiberius had the 
guilty contrivers crucified, banished Mundis, and demolished the 
temple of Isis and gave orders that her statue should be thrown 
into the river Tiber, when the facts were made known to him" 
(76.379). The foregoing proves that pagan priests had complete 
control over the morals of their followers and when they saw comely 
maidens they, no doubt, enjoined them to take vows of perpetual 
virginity so they could lie with them under the pretense that it 
was a god, and when the maidens conceived through the gods (pagan 
priests) the populace was "bumfoozled," by the priests, into be- 



678 

lieving that the maidens conceived through and by the power of the 
gods. And as the church copied some other of the pagan practices, 
one among which is as "Plutarch informs us that the pagan mys- 
teries often began with discreet confessions whispered into priestly 
ears" (66:15), which is the present auricular confession as practiced 
by the church, then why may she not also have copied that of 
perpetual virginity or celibacy as it is still practiced by some Orien- 
tal churches at present, with this difference that the virginity or 
celibacy of the church is real and pure and not immoral as was 
that of the pagans. 

So far as God is concerned marriage is just as pleasing and 
blessed in His sight as virginity or celibacy. And any who enter 
the married state are not so "weak" as to be made public laughing- 
stock fools of, and be humiliated when just married, as is some- 
times done by a lot of empty-headed snobs who think they are 
doing something "smart," and which is "great -fun" for them to 
treat their newly married friends as though they had just done 
something which showed weakmindedness. 

Often newly married are treated as though they entered the 
marriage state only to have "an affinity of two differing cells," or 
as though they were mentally diseased, or as if their love was only 
calf love. To me it seems as an impeachment of the wisdom, 
design and handiwork of Grod to make public spectacles of newly 
married people. I could not help but admire the stand taken by 
a groom who drew a revolver on the crowd and told them that 
"this nonsense has gone about far enough," when the bridal couple 
was still stormed with rice, old shoes, etc., after they had gotten 
on the train. 

If therefore j^ou are a young man contemplating marriage do 
not think, if you entertain such a thought, that you are "weak" or 
have not "good taste," etc. It is only the morally impure who 
look upon marriage as a "weakness" — forgetting that if they think 
it is a "weakness" that God designed such "weakness." 

You will also be better thought of, and be fulfilling a design 
and an injunction of God (Gen. 1:28), if you marry and make 
some woman happy, and in time have to push a baby in a cab 
than if you remain single and pusli around ivory balls on a green 
cloth, in atmospheres oftentimes stifling and reeking with the 
fumes of tobacco or the odors of liquor; or than if you shut your- 



679 

self up within four walls and wear a cassock with a cowl to it to 
be pulled over the head. 

And if you are a young woman you will show just as much 
"good taste" etc., if you marry and make some man happy, and in 
time have an "anti-race suicide" family, as if you made vows of 
perpetual virginity and have dangling from a belt a string of beads 
— Rosary — on which to count, by "vain repetitions" (Matt. 6:7), the 
following prayer fifty-three times, which is utterly impossible, as 
shown elsewhere, for the one to whom addressed to hear, because 
she would have to hear over 46,000 petitions, simultaneously, every 
second of time from one end of the year to the other if she heard 
all the petitions addressed to her: 

"Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art 
thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. 
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the 
hour of our death. Amen." [You know now what the Rosary 
beads are for. It is to count on them fifty-three times the above 
prayer.] 

Of course I would advise both the man and the woman, who con- 
template marriage, to avoid "Marrimoniac," which is defined in 
Prof. Uptodate's dictionary as follows: "Marrimoniac, n. (from 
marriage and money, common gender) — An individual who thinks 
happiness can be bought with money, and who marries, or is willing 
to marry, for the price. Indigeneous to the entire country and to 
Europe. Also elsewhere" (57: Aug. 20, 1903). 

To me it seems, in view of the fact that so many women sac- 
rifice their lives in giving birth to children, that women who marry 
in obedience to the injunction of Gren. 1:28, and increase and 
multiply the human race, and in view of the fact that they might 
have to sacrifice their lives in doing so, that they ought to receive 
the greater crown of reward of the two — the married and the per- 
petual virginity vowed — if God desires the perpetuation of mankind 
and would regard His design and handiwork as creations of wis- 
dom. Is not that so? a. f. y. Of course, as shown in another chap- 
ter, it cannot be regarded as a design of God that some women lose 
their lives in giving birth to children. 

We have now finished our summary, and what more shall I 
say in conclusion? No doubt to the Catholic the book appears to 
be a little severe on the Church, and that my blows aimed at her 



680 

are the hardest given in this book. But you must bear in mind 
that where error and arrogance and intolerance is greatest there the 
hardest blows must be given if I wish to succeed in bringing about 
Christian Unity. 

You must admit, unless you deliberately throw away your in- 
tellect, that the church is full of errors and has greatly erred in 
her interpretation of what it means to be "bom again,' "regen- 
erated;" the way of putting on Christ, and in praying to any one 
except Grod Almighty, etc., etc. That it is arrogance to say "There 
is but one way of re-union [Of the Protestant Church with the 
Catholic Church] — the highway of submission. To dream of com- 
promise on her part is to dream of fairies and fairy-land" (16: — ). 
And is she not intolerant when she forbids a Christian Science 
healer to have admission to a house to see a person who is bed- 
ridden with illness; with her forbidding her members to attend a 
■ Protestant Church, etc.? That is why I have not spared the 
Church. 

But is not every statement which I have made about her 
teachings and practices true? And if anything said in this book 
hurts her more than it does others does that not prove then that 
the Church has errors which she would rather not have uncovered? 
The uncovering of error is always fought by those who advocate 
them as truths. Truth fears no light; in fact it invites, or ought 
to, investigation and analysis. Is that not so? But have I not 
likewise given hard blows' to other subjects examined and con- 
sidered in this book? Wherever and whenever I thought I saw 
error, idoltary, superstitution, blasphemy, inconsistency, contradic- 
tion, absurdity, or "silliness," I tried to point it out no matter 
whether it concerned the Catholic, the Protestant, or the Christian 
Science, church; or any of the other subjects examined. Have I 
not done that? Well then I hope that the Catholics will be no 
more wrought up over it — if they should be wrought up over it 
at all — than others will be when the book once comes before the 
public. 

If the appearance of this book should make me the most hated 
and despised person in the world I will not care for that so long 
as it will drive all of you into One Church. If every great move- 
ment or reform or change in the world requires the sacrifice of 
some one connected with it then I do not care if, after my object 



681 

lias been accomplished,— ^that is, Christian Unity made a fact, — I 
am crucified on the cross of detestation, ostracism, criticism, etc. 
But get together and be One Church, regardless of what becomes 
of me, so that you may present a solid phalanx against the wave 
of Atheism, Agnosticism, irreligion, infidelity and indiflPerentism 
which is now sweeping, I might say, over the whole civilized 
world ! 

Another subject against which I have aimed hard blows is that 
of liquor and the saloon. Of course as I have, on page 662 of this 
book, and in other places, alliteratively, and otherwise, character- 
ized the saloon may seem, no doubt, a little strong to those who 
have always lived in small cities or country towns, but I do not 
think I have overdrawn it when applied to large cities. I lived 
for fifteen years in Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago and there 
saw and heard of much that convinces me that I have not over- 
drawn the nature of the saloon and the awful results following 
from drinking liquor in them. 

Another thing which I have held up in as unfavorable a light 
•as possible is that of the use of tobacco. I have done so for two 
reasons. One is its useless cost, and the other its filthy, nauseat- 
ing nature which in time gives to many users of it, and to their 
■clothes, such a disagreeable odor which is, no doubt, repulsive to 
many delicate, cultured and refined married women, — destroying 
the sweet flavor of "Shrewsberry clock" kisses, — but as they are 
fearful lest by telling their husbands of that fact there would be a 
rupture of feelings, they bear and suffer in silence with the per- 
verted tastes and habits of their husbands. And as this book is 
intended for everybody, and not only for those who favor Christian 
Unity, is the reason for treating some of the social and economic 
subjects the way I did in this book. I want this book to be a 
benefit to its readers mentally, morally, spiritually, physically and 
financially. 

I believe if all of us exercised a little more tact, reason, 
judgment, generosity, sympathy and common sense, we could get 
together into a One Church, and make life in this world for one 
another a foretaste of heaven, and no longer regard it as only "a 
vale of tears." And, with Christian Unity a fact, I believe the 
church could be made so attractive, and religion be made so plain 
and simple to understand — but by no means an easy thing to live 



m 

up to — to the many who are not now affiliated with the churches 
that they would affiliate with the One Church which would not 
teach unreasonable, incomprehensible and blasphemous doctrines, 
but which would teach the religion of humanity which Jesus 
taught. And I do believe it would be more edifying, soul-inspir- 
ing and God-honoring if we could all sing the same tiymns, wor- 
ship in the same church, — for it is necessary that one should 
attend chiirch, at least once a week, to meet one another, sing 
hymns together, etc., in. order to keep the brotherly sentiment and 
feeling alive. A law of the mind and heart requires that they be 
reminded and reanimated and revived from time to time with, 
what might be called, "emotionalism," in order that our souls may 
be lifted up and our sympathies be kept alive, — and know no more 
Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Dowieism, Mor- 
monism. Christian Science, etc., but all be known as disciples of 
Jesus Christ — Christians. Do you not think so? 

If you do, then work for Christian Unity, and through it 
make it better and easier to uplift the weak who have fallen by 
the wayside of temptation; to succor the unfortunate and the poor 
broken-hearted wives and innocent, helpless children of the drunken 
husbands and fathers; to extend the hand of forgiveness to the 
repentant girl who has publicly failed in her virtue; to have con- 
sideration and feeling for your fellow-laborer, businessman, etc., and 
let the spirit of "live and let live" rule and guide you in your 
dealings with all classes of people no matter what their nationality 
and color may be. All are of God's creation and all ought to, 
therefore, have the Fatherhood of the one God, the brotherhood of 
man and the one leadership of Jesus Christ. This then would 
about be the platform of the One Church which ought to appeal 
to all fair, reasonable, reflecting, thinking and liberal-minded people: 
The Fatherhood of God, 
The Brotherhood of Man, 
The Leadership of Jesus Christ, 
Salvation by Character, 
Punishment for sin measure for measure 
And not for everlasting. 

No forgiveness of sin without forsaking it- 
Sin no more — repentance and restitution. 
Are you ready for such a platform? The difPerent Protestant 



6.83 

churches will probably not find it difficult to come together into 
One Church, for they now already exchange pulpits with one an- 
other and have union services. But will and can the Catholic be a 
party to Christian Unity? I say, yes; if willing to be guided by 
reason, understanding, mathematical proofs, carnal arguments 'and 
common sense — "the arms of the intellect" — as I was, and be will- 
ing to follow, step by step, the subjects as I analyzed them in this 
book. 

I can assure you, my Catholic reader, that I did not come to 
the convictions and conclusions, as given in this book, without 
much earnest prayer, serious thinking, mental perturbations and 
sleepless nights. Many a time I wished myself dead when con- 
victions came to me which ran counter to the current of general 
belief, to the teachings of the Church and which were at variance 
with the opinions I once held, but the convictions were so strong 
and convincing that I could not resist making the attempt to pro- 
claim them to the world, even though I never had a course in 
theology. 

Probably it was because I had no course in theology that I 
was able to take in the whole broad expanse of the matter. If I 
had had a course in Catholic theology I would, no doubt, have had 
my investigations limited to its narrow rut. If I had had a course 
in Lutheran theology I would, no doubt, have had my investiga- 
tions limited to its narrow rut. If I had had a course in Presby- 
terian theology I would, no doubt, have had my investigations 
limited to its narrow rut, and so on. Therefore it was probably 
best, in order to make a plea for Christian Unity, that I was not 
hampered or restricted by the School of Theology of any denomi- 
nation. 

Now, my Catholic reader, if you are willing to follow the course 
I did, you cannot go wrong if you can no longer firmly believe in 
the teachings, as a whole, of the Church just as I no longer believe 
in them. And if you doubt the truth of but one of the doctrines 
of the Church then you are no longer a consistent Catholic and 
you are virtually outside of the pale of the Church. I do not see 
how you, or any one who has read this book, can any longer be- 
lieve in the Roman Catholic Church if you or they do not delib- 
erately throw away the "arms of the intellect," a gift from God as 
well as faith may be, even if there is nothing so tenacious as a 



6B4 

religious belief. To make a change in religious beliefs is not the 
work of a moment. That I know from my own experience, not 
having had anyone to point out to me the errors, etc., as I have 
pointed them out for you. 

If you will then, if expedient for you, take the first step in 
acknowledging such a fact, — that of perceiving the errors pointed 
out to you, — you will no doubt be the means of many more doing 
the same, and if a considerable number should do the same, then 
why may not a movement be started that will end in a union of 
the Churches and Christian Unity become a fact? 

Hoping then that the reading of this book will in time accom- 
plish its object, that of bringing about Christian Unity, the re-es- 
tablishing of the religion of humanity taught by Jesus, and that 
His prayer of John 17 :21 may be fulfilled, is my earnest and sincere 
wish and prayer. 



IIN^DEX. 



A. f . y. Answer for yourself, XVIII. 

Abbot, robing in church, 99. 

Absolution, go to other cities for, 147. Criminal 
gets, escapes law, 148. 

Act of sorrow, 20. Of contrition saves at death, 
26. Of Love, 91. Of Love in full, 170. 

Acts of virtue for November, 198. 

Ads, for a position, XXVIII. Which are lies, 425. 

Adultery, punished by twenty year penances, 160. 

Adam and Eve, God indifferent about, 280. 

Advertising 50c value for 39c, 563. 

Agitators, cause discontentment, 593. 

Agnostics, teach children non-existence of Gcd, 
35. 

Air castles, rudely shattered, 435. 

Altar Society, receipts from, 95. 

Altars, one or more side, 94. Cost of, 96. Cost 
$8,000, families mostly of laboring class, 310. 

Angels, sinned without devil to tempt, 233. Are 
male and female, marry, 242. 

Animals, punished in anticipation of man sinningr, 
226. Existed before human belief, 346. Domes- 
ticated, why more varied, 504. Suffering not so 
intense as appears, 508. 

Annihilation, an act of mercy, 8. For utterly de- 
praved, 34. Word not in vocabulary of science, 
525. 

Anti-Catholic," propaganda in Rome, 146. 

"Anti-race suicide," family, 679. 

Anthropomorphic, conception of God destroyed, 
138. 

Anubis, god of pagans, 6T7. Much like terrestial 
husband, 677. 

Apes, assumed upright gait, became human, 476. 
In mental stagnation millions of years, 529. 

Ape-like, progenitors "chosen" favorites, 488. 

Apostles, believed and preached, 181. 

Appropriate conditions, 456. 

Appetites, whetted by what fed, 586. 

Arbitration, settle disputes between nations, 611. 

Architect, how make idea manifeotif no material? 
338. 

Arise and walk, asking for test, 86. 

Armies, of God and devil, how equipped, 45. 

Arrogance, to say one way to reunion, 68C. 

Atheist, be one but fcr light of reason, 267. 

At least for a time, 20. 

Atoms, are dead particles of matter, 528. Not 
dead. 528. , 



Atonement, illustrated by A B C, 42. Falls with 
destruction of the devil, 254. Paul and John 
tinged with Jewish sacrifice, 645. 

B 

Babe, how immortal, 529. 

Baby's clothes, small enough to wear, 268. 

Badger, digs nest of wasps, 507. 

Baked dough, pray before piece of, 88. 

Banquet to honor royalty. 197. 

Baptism, Catholic consists of, 194. Non-Catholic 
heretical, at park, 194. Of desire, 220. Cleanses 
from all sin, 227. Refused children, 228. Is 
nothing, 228. 

Baptize, children is solemn mockery, 229. Not 
babies, Dowie, 230. 

Baptized with fire, Servetus and Huss, 229. 

Bartering the Comforter, 413. 

Beard, beccming tome. 477. 

Beards, acquired by male apes to charm opposite 
sex, 477. 

Beef Trust, held responsible, 187. 

Beliefs, cause of diversity of, 654. Change in, not 
work of moment, 684. 

Begets Son by knowledge of Himself, 215. 

Begotten, when one's father was bom, 214. 

Benedict, walking floor with baby, 626. 

Benediction, earthly paradise, 89. 

Bible, as many mysteries as words, 238. Like 
wax, 265. Dishonors God, degrades woman, 272. 
Catholic 74 books, Protestant, 66, 288. If infalli- 
ble why not One InfallibU Church? 289. Pro- 
testant, a corrupted one, 289. To teach in 
schools, objections from sects, 291. Bad heart 
great objection against, 293. Books got on 
Communion table, 296. Occupation of clergy 
gone if written in plain language, 299. A con- 
tradiction on God's omnipresence, 300. Mormon 
has on his side, 301. Only infallibility minister 
requires, 303. Gospels of Luke and Mark may 
not be infallible, 307. Protestants' blind faith 
in unreasonable, 308. As if brought |to earth 
visibly by an angel, 308. If true in every word 
Mormons and Christian Scientists have best of 
argument, 442. With a rib story, 458. What 
did unbelief read? 543. Contains science for 
stock breeders, 504? Evangelization results in 
U. S., 613. 

Bigamy, of patriarchs permitted by God, 273.' 

Billy goat whiskers, 483. 

Birds, waved their rights, 492. 



686 



Births, ratio 106 males. 100 females, 274. 

Bishop gives permission for round dancing;, 104. 
Husband of one wife, 620. 

Blasphemous, too monstrously, 47. 

Blessed Virgrin, soul pierced by attitude of Jesus, 
59. Beholds all things in Beatifice vision, 117. 
Over 46,000 petitions every second of time, 118. 
Perpetual virginity attacked, 126. At top of 
white ladder, 129. Arm around us from birth, 
130. Fly to arms of, when devil comes near, 
132. Has incomparable influence, 138. Prayer 
°f Church to, 139. Conceived without .St. Joa- 
chim, 206. 

Blind chance, everything left to, 448. 

Blood of a God in veins, 72. 

Body to undergo supernatural chances, 261. 
Nothing more monstrous believe Sprit produces 
physical, 340. 

Bones, no breakage of, can occur, 376. 

Book, not be criticised, XVI. Prodigal Son, en- 
tering wedge, 110. Not come into being with- 
out author, 540. God author of, of nature, 541. 
Make me hated and despised, 681. To benefit 
its readers, 681. 

Born again, is it same as baptizing? 229. 

Borrow money pay church dues, 624. 

Boy, eats green apples, has cholera morbus, 337. 
Cultivate staying home, 637. In knee breeches, 
smoking, 581. 

Bowels and kidneys, work, healer asks how, 345. • 

Brains, well educated, no conscience, 663. 

Bread of life, the Gospel, 76. Thou art and. Thou 
shalt remain, 78. 

Brewer, becomes millionaire in life time, 571. 

Bribery, a "conventional crime," 35. 

Brick, potentially alive, car barn, 517. 

Bride in decollete refused communion, 22. 

Brotherly love, shown, without bread and wine, 
670. 

Brother's keeper, feel one is, 674. 

Buffalo, reduces infant mortality, 349. 

"Bumfoozled," said of opponent, 61. 

Busthead of a spree, 544. 

By-Laws, new of C. S. Subscribe, 407. 

C 

Calvin, held in execration, burning Servetus, 306. 

Canaar^jtes, extermination big with mercy, 278. 

Caudle, made from labor of bees, 188. 

Cannibal, makes meal of missionary, 88. 

Capital return 5 per cent in land, 6, in mortgages, 
597. Exempt from tax rich richer, idea hard 
get over, 598. 

Capitalist not spend riotously, 605. 

Cards, played till 4 a. m. Sunday, 369. Party an- 
nounced from communion railing, 625. 

Cardinals, names of, 207. 

Cathedral to cost twenty-five millions, 647. 

Catholic, regarded as a "practical," xix. Up to 



thirty-seventh year of age, 110. Only a drunk- 
en, 21. 

Catholics, conduct after Lent, 21. Blind as I once 
was, 129. Not allowed te witness heretical cere- 
monies, 194. And Christian Scientists chosen 
of God, 282. Should have credulity of child, 228. 
More than all others in the future, 433. 

Catholic Church, wisdom and learning of 1800 
years, 47. Not change one i-o-ta, 47. Charges 
25 cents admission, 99. Gives Sunday concerts, 
etc., 103. Debt different places, 106. Lenient 
account weakness of faithful, 160. Accepts no 
doctrines not from apostles, 181. Credentials 
reach to apostles, 181. More a human creation, 
201. Would not have uttered a word against, 
207. Never yield one iota, 207. Making false 
lying statements, 209. No Christianity outside 
the, 208. Take out Mass, what distinguish from 
Protestant, 653. 

Celibacy, nearer right than marriage, 631. 

Cemetery, dead sleep in peace in, 270. 

Cheerfulness, good tonic for health, 430. 

Chief manipulator, of C. S., 409. 

Chickens, acquired habit breaking egg-shells, 470. 

Child, condition of stomach, food no serious import 
to, 349. Nine hundred and ninet>'-nine thou- 
sandths (999-1000) of its physical from mother, 
531. Drowns in tub. 548. 

Children, bring condemnation with them from 
mother's womb, 227. Counterfeits of creation, 
344. Of second husband resemble first husband, 
503. Why no two alike, 503. Kind who are more 
an honor to God, 537. Of debauchee, working, 
instead be in school, 580. Penalty of lust rather, 
583. Poem on death, 626. Better weep for ten 
dead, 627. Small, small burden. 627. 

Chinese bind girl's feet, 469. 

Chorus girls, in tights, 169. 

Christ, how long present in external elements, 70 
Leaves us whole and entire, 70. Absorbed to 
annihilation, 70. 100 per cent substance, 71. Put 
on by frequentatien of Eucharistic table, 76. 
His words complete the Sacrament, 85. 

Christians, slaughter like barbarians, 612. Run- 
ning a saloon, 662. 

Christian Science, a psychology of heart, 
314. Stops use of material remedies, 321. 
Five years in, not healed yet, 323. Pla- 
giarism of Quimbyism, 328. Is pantheistical, 
334. Thinly disguised Theosophy on matter, 335. 
Heals most inveterate nothing, 341. Redeeming 
features of, 668. Commendations on, 668. 

Christian Scientists, are self-deceived, etc., 322. 
Must dress well, have plenty of money, 330. Ac- 
quired comfortable fortunes. 343. Enter brother 
and sister relation marriages, 344. Greatness of 
entertainment dawned on, 400. Read nothing 
but C. S. literature, 438. Are not lunatics, 444. 



687 



Casting glance at platform, 656. Not offended 
at me, if consistent, 668, 

Christian Unity, wish of sincere Christians. 661. 
Advantages of, 662. 

Christology, not pollute hands touch book of, 325. 
Contrast between it and S. and H.. 436. 

Church, kind believe going to, 92. Of Christ a re- 
ligion of humanity, 211. Of Rome, fighting for, 
288. Pond, fifty millions in no, 292. Quid es of Old 
Testament erred, 305. Struck by lightning, 
bums, 545. Distinguishes four states of life, 
617. Anathema Council of Atchison, 641. Says, 
I am God's truth, 643. Waste of wealth in build- 
ings, 646. Reunion with, highway of submission 
only, 653. Is intolerant, 680. Necessary attend 
once a week, 682. 

Churches, different routes to heaven, 311. Built 
up under divine guidance, 311. 

Cigarettes, cause most at reformatory-, 588. Effect 
on mind, 588. 

City, of 140,000, 20,000 communicants of church, 
' 614. 

Coffee, cup of, not equal of Truth, 343. 

Collection Iwxes, patent, 624. 

Communion, given to infants, 74. Jesus received 
under each form, 88. Not preserve priests from 
sin 24 hours. 91. Receive once a year under pain 
of sin, 91. Giyen spoon-full of water when re- 
deived in bed, 109. Creature assimilating the 
Creator, 73. Swallowing man 33 years old, 109. 
Wine causes reformed drunkard, relapse, 669> 

Rites useless, senseless, now, 670. 

Concubines, wives of inferior degree, 274. 

Concupiscence, the devil who tempts, 233. Means 
our passions, etc., 233. 

Confession, cancels whole life of iniquity, 19. 
Priest says is easy, 20. Relic of paganism, 142. 
Tell malady of soul in, 144. Tell in, if go to 
Protestant church, 147. Result of the inquisi- 
tion, 148. Go once a year under pain of sin, 149. 
True gate to heaven, 150. According to Dowie, 
152. Not hard, 155. If frequent unnerves 
devil's power, 157. 

Confessions, penances of ten, 125. 

Congregation, whom the Lord loves, complexion, 
250. 

Conjured into existence, 460. 

Conscience, fund be increased, 283. Tortured ten 
j^ars, 550. Can become seared, 551. Torments 
woman 3 years, 551. 

Constitution of U. S., like reading daily, 629. 

Convent to house of ill-fame in ten years, 23. Sur- 
roundings calm and beautiful, 618. Shut in, 
sure of heaven, 621. Atmosphere free from 
woes, 625. 

Convert, more exemplary, 394. 

Convictions not arrived at easily, 683. 

Cooking, bad, cause of divorces, 574. 



Com, why not exact reproduction, 505. Mill with 
two spouts. 518. Comes out feathers on goose, 
etc., 470. 

Corsets, death of thousands, 384. 

Courting, to fool each other, 638. 

Country, do that for which best adapted, 672. 

Courts, decisions simply unintelligible, 523. 

Creation, when reversed? 77. From within out- 
ward, 469. 

Credentials, cry of the Church, 201. 

Crimes, 80 to 90 per cent connected with liquor, 
588. 

Crucified on cross of ostracism, 681. 



Dagger, all thrust one, 80. 

Dances-round highly indecent, 104. Description 
by dancing master, 104. Church made mistake 
in protest against, 105. Not my sentiment 
about, 154. 

Darwinian . theory, rejected, 489. Rejected by 
Agassiz, 512. 

David did right in the eyes of Jehovah, 274. How 
introduced his wives, 275. Shameless, cruel 
despot, 275. Poor example sin not punished, 
276. In person of Christ prayeth against perse, 
cutors, 276. Psalms not suit Dowie, 276. 

Dead sleep in cemetery, why Masses for. 270. 
Shed tears over, Bible says, 629. 

Death, desired when low in hope, 191. Not enter 
world account of sin. 225. But passing from 
one state to another, 260. Designed by God. 270- 

Decollete dress, waltz and vile men, 389. Three 
reasons why women wear, 391. 

Derviation theory, anatomy not favor, 516. 

Degeneration, the rule rather than transmuta- 
tion, 516. 

Deo gratias, one in poverty worth six thousand in 
prosperity, 379. 

Denominational lines, 211. 

Department stores, sapping hopes, 562. Affects 
small dealers, 563. 

Devil, hand off Mr., 44. Onto his job, 157. Who 
tempted Lucifier? 233. Armed with evil de- 
sires, 235. And angels play see-saw, 237. Why 
not go gunning for, 239. Doctrine of, blasphem- 
ous lie, 240. Finds sins not confessed, 244. How 
enter without displacing soul? 249. Causes 
earthquakes, droughts. 247. Does, wound and 
God heal? 253. Can do no injury unless God 
permits, 256. Teachings about, interpolations. 
443. Is homed cloven-footed, 510. How go about 
when chained down? 230. 20th century witness 
death of, 658. 

Ding-dong about money, 103. 

Dimpled darling, in mother's arms, 229. 

Disease, drives from God, 251. Result of educa- 
cation, 373. Pains of, alarm bell, 434. 



688 



Divine providence, no special, 548. Why not over 
me, 549. Contradicts according to literature, 549. 

Divorces, granted in 20 years, 630. For adultery, 
more to men, 635. 

Dr. Dowie, on eternal punishment, 30. Psalms 
not at all suit, 276. 

Doctors, fought every school of healing, 417. Make 
wrong diagnoses, 418. Not allow to collect if 
patient dies, 419. Make $500 challenge to C. S., 
420. Scored for blundering, 424. 

Doctrines, conceived in intellectual darkness, 662. 

Down town, boys spend leisure time, 687. 

Dregs of poverty, live in, 330. 

Dress, love of ruins as many, 603. 

Drink, annual bill for U. S., 578. Causes depar- 
ture from virture, 578. 

Drinkers, leave old alone, 573. Not treated with 
respect, 575. Inflict future suffering on wives, 
577. Five acts in career of. 576. 

Drug store, seen drinking soda in, 573. 

Drunkness, creates hell, 144. Died in gutter after 
25 years of, 368. Causes 40 per cent distress, 590. 

Dynamite, out of men, 556. 

E 

Eagle eye, of the Pope, 76, 

Ear, like key board of piano, 495. Remarkably 

purposive, 496. 
Earth, pillars of are Jehovah's, 300. 
Eddy, Mrs., pays to take no patients, 408. Voice 

calls, 8 years old, 445. 
Eggs, germs of life, 457. One each for male and 

female, 457. Before the chick, 460. 
Ego, which is the, 264. 
Either let her in or put me out, 59. 
Electricity, nonesense of error, 349. 
Elysian field's smoke, 653. 

Emotions, compared to steam in engine, 235. Af- 
fects the appetite, 430. 
Embryology, alone sufficient for evolution, 461. 
Embryos, all same first month, 464. Of fish, man, 

466. 
Engine, medal on reels over, 218. And derrick to 

overcome gravitation, 373. 
Enoch, ascend to heaven, no one saw, 267. 
Error, acknowledge when made aware of, 553. 

Uncovering, always fought, 680. 
Es geht wie geschmirt, 164. 
Eternal punishment, God why may change on, 

644. 
Ethical qualities, transmissible, 529. 
Eucharist, is Christ whole and entire, 70. Bread 

of Life, 77. Piece of baked dough, 88. 
Evil, Vedanta philosophy on origin, 256. There is 

no, 355. Simply absence of Truth, not real, 365. 

Is nothing because good is all, 435. Laughed 

down easier than preached down, 207. 
Evolution, retrogression as frequent as retrogres- 



General plan, creation on a, 466. 

Generating organ, slight modifications, 489. 
sion, 464. End in complete happiness, 486. 
Constant infraction of law, 505. Mary to ma, 
511. Has come to stay, 512. 

Existence, of alternate pleasures and pains, 509. 

Exorcism, of Chrism, 194. 

Extreme Unction, not give John now, 190. Re- 
lieves pains, etc., 191. Given twice to me, 191. 

Eyes, 46 000 or more pairs, 139. Salve of Rev. 
3:18,192. See only in straight line, 328. 



Facts, will you destroy? 355 

Faculty, cell seat of every, 351. 

Fair weather, in midst of murky clouds, 329. 

Faith— Catholic, no salvation without, 40. Cannot 
be saved without, 208. Sin deserving damnation 
to forsake, 208. Lost throuhh thinking, 549. 

Farmers not clamor for single tax, 594. Prays for 
rain, 649. 

Fasting, gave stomach trouble, 109. 

Fashion, feminine folly offsets, 603. 

Father, would remove dog lacerating children, 
240. Begin provide before married, 560. 

Fall, what now becomes of doctrine, 270. 

False thinking, husband should do no, 380. 

Feed, on body of Jesus, 72. 

Fellow's girl, is all to him, 339. 

Fever, cold water good for, 423. Cold water better 
than powerful eloquence for, 424. 

Finite, absorbs Infinite, 73. 

First Friday, nine consecutive months, 182. Im- 
I)ortant belief, 208. 

Fire, blessing of new, 188. 

Fish globe and water, 133. In church-pond, jerk 
out Methodist 291. 

Flesh, an illusion, Jesus speaks to, 340. Not prod- 
uct of God, 377. 

Food, saturated with gastric juice, 318. Neither 
strengthens nor weakens body, 343. Two ounces 
of two kind, 179. 

Fools, enough spend earnings, 571. Don't be, mur- 
der in war, 571. 

Foolish, to stop eating, 344. 

For God's sake do not remind me, 82. 

Foreigners, breaking records, immigration, 672. 

Forty Hour devotion, meaning, 87. Procession 89. 

Franklin, B. maxims of, 610. 

Freaks, who never kissed women, 154. 

Free will, not help problem of sin, 361. Dogma an 
illusion, 523. 

French revolution, priests came forward, 78. 
G 

Galileo, persecuted, 295. 

Gambling, ruins business, 370. 

Gambler's Ancestors Club, 371. 

Geology, favors special creation, 516. 



689 



Generation, one age human'race, 265. Rests on 
no sexual basis, 344. 

Giraffe's neck, elongated, 484. 

Girls with desire for twenty dollar hats, 604. 
Working, save twice as much as boys, 605. 
Rather play on typewriter, 639. Insulted, "Get 
yourself a sweetheart," 669. • 

God, deaf to cries for annihilation, 7. His mercy 
an ocean, 8. Best and tenderest of fathers, 28. 
Could not be appeased, 46. Fiend-eyed, etc., 48. 
DeereedlJesus' suffering from eternity, 51. En- 
ters Himself, 85. How hear over billions of 
prayers, 134. Science and philosophy on, 135. 
Revelation on, 136. Whom resembles? 137. Not 
omnipresent says Mormon, 137. Pardons into 
everlasting forgetfulness, 159. Three Persons 
in, 213. Principle other two owe origin, 214. 
Will hear the Son, 215. In India with three heads, 
224. Neither wills, dends, nor decrees, 242. 
Smites here to spare in eternity, 250. No more 
everywhere than you or L 302. Condescending 
love for men, 306. A theological mythoplasm, 
332. Is noumena and phenomena, 334. Sum 
total of universe, 335. All in all favors Univer- 
salism, 339. Heals which knows nothing of, 341. 
Knows no such thing as sin, sends Jesus, 362. 
Ask to heal nothingness a mockery, 365. Poor 
conception if give onlyiwhen asked, 372. If 
should say to Christian Scientists "My child," 
etc., 433. Wants us be happy here, 450. Is 
Esse, part of universe, 452. Would have reasons 
to deny existence of, 490. Existence proved by 
reason, 539. Make eternal instead of universe, 
541. Problem of evil argument against existence 
of, 643. Object of reverence, 544. Governs by 
law, 544. No place for providence of, if have 
free will, 544. Served by perpetually adoring, 
549. Governs moral realm by law, 550. Law be 
done, not His will, 552. Called people in Amer- 
ica, 613. Not contradict Himself, 654. Name 
mentioned only in church, 664. Wheedling and 
humoring, like snobs, 668. 

Godliness, means fighting for religion, 288. 

Good or evil not concrete, 354. 

Good Intent school-mates get up surprise party, 
367, Make one total abstainer, 584. 

Golden Rule, as expfessed by a woman, 309. God 
more pleased with, 312. 

Gold, on chorch steeple, hungry on ground, 312. 

Good taste shown in choosing virginity, 618. 

Gospel of Mark, some omit 16:9 to end, 228. 

Grace, bestow on oil, 193. 

Grass, cow acquires horns to eat, 463. 

Gravitation is not nothingness, 341. 

Groom drew revolver on crowd, 678. 

Grossly anthropomorphic to be accepted, 457. 

Grease patches, by papish priests, 194. 

Guardian, angels protect us, 241. Means a pro- 
tector, 241. 



H 

Habits, sown in youth become second nature, 638. 

Haeckel, bravest friend of men, 499. 

Hail! Holy Chrism, 195. 

Hail Mary, prayer of, 679. 

Hair, partial loss esteemed an'omament, 488. 

Headache, reaction from debauch,{593. 

Heal by argument, find type of ailment, 375. 

Healer, and healers,* said, 326. Do-no-good till 
doom's day, 394.ll Came over fifty miles, 395. 
With one exception, accepted money, 317. Sent 
bill for treating consumption, 842. Heroic treat- 
ment by nine, 357. 

Healing the sick means, souls, 143. Done by vir- 
tue of God's natural law, 320. Cheaper to have 
hired done, 346. Grace of God in hair of Italian. 
iW. Head manipulated in, 327. 

Heart, God turns as He wills, 53. Meet dwelling 
place for God, 312. 

Heat and cold, products of mortal mind, 343. 

Heaven, excursion through, 23. Way to, is Christ- 
like life, 150. Place of numberless delights, 241. 
Go to sleep on earth wake in, 265. Portals closed 
before coming of Christ, 266. 

Hell, description pains of, 4. Opened to Chris- 
tians, 11. Protestant view of, 12. Ninety thous- 
and less eight for, 14. Devil supports doctrine 
of, 16. An effectual bridle, 17. Increases feli- 
city of Saints, 26. Increases felicity of father, 
etc., 27. God principal author torments of, 27. 
Dr. Dowie on, 30. Terrible sermon Nov. 16, 
1902 on, 168. 

Heretic, avoid after two admonitions, 543. 

Heretical, what is meant by. 204. Apostles not 
pray to Jesus, 217. 

High Priest, errs at supreme moment, 178. Office 
analogous to that of the Pope, 305. 

Highest intellectual progress, 472. 

Holy water, how made, 189. Makes devils flea. 
245. 

Hook, to hang evil on, 357. 

Home, love of, acquire before marriage, 638. 

Home industries, patronize first, 567. 

Honorariums, unless paid no Mass, 413. 

House, evolved from chicken house, 468. 

Hour glasses for measuring time, 286. 

Housekeeping, train daughters in good, 574. Pri- 
vate, a great waste, 600. Better for sanctity of 
home, 600. Virtually co-operation, 601. 

House work regarded as "menial," 639. 

How long, O my people, 108. 

Hudson, on temptation of Jesus, 248. 

Hug and embrace, difference between, 347. 

Huge immortification, to indulge senses, 686« 

Humane Society, or Bands of Mercy, 7. 

Hungers for kind word, 669. 

Hunkey, John, bom under 8tac Vir^ o, 4Q9^ 



690 



Husband, pray to St. Catherine for a, 140. 
Husk of corn, in field. 266. 

I 

I am going to enjoy while young, 555. 

Illiterate, lay broOhcr on pulpit steps, 131. 

Image of God, meaning, 161. 

Immaculate Conception, dogma 1854 206. 

Inunortality, is it put on in grave? 262. Involves 
family ties, 526. Infant, how possible, 529. 

Impelling forces, strive for gratification, 235. 

Incense, relic of paganism, 113. 

Increase and multiply soul and body, 530. 

Incubator, and powerful eloquence, 432. 

Individual, a unit of society, 603. Teach, practice 
self-denial in youth, 603. 

Indefatigable labors of priests, 411. 

Inclinations, are transmitted, 226. 

Indulgences, meaning of, 159. Granted on account 
of Mahomet, 162. Tetzel on soul take^ its flight, 
163. Gain 100 a day, 165. Plenary at death, why 
Masses then? ITO.'iHow may be gained, 171. Kind 
I would grant, 173. Liberates from poverty and 
disease, 170. Easier to gain than a healing in C. 
S., 643. 

Infallible, authority. Catholic in church, Protest- 
ant in Bible, 654. 

Infallibility of Pope, meaning, 176. 

Infant, day old enemy of God, 227. How immortal 
if die, 529. 

Infidel, poets, did God specially create, 532. No 
freer from believing in errors, 553. A 

Ingersoll, on Woman's Love, 499. 

Ingersollism, ruled Prance once, 552. 

Intellect, thrown under Sect of faith, 2. Sin to 
reject, 80. A dethroned king, 85. Gap between 
man and ape, great, 514. Crowned supreme, 667. 

Intemperance, bad cooking causes much, 573. 

Interest, paid by church $75,000, 103. 

Inventions, sins, works of the devil, 366. 

Ivory balls, on green cloth, push, 678. 

Is, in Greek, aori signifies, 73. 

Israelites, Bible description of, 279. 



Jehovah, cruel, partial, not God who is, 278. 

Jerked to Jesus, 23. Out a Methodist, 291. 

Jesus redeemed us from slavery of devil, 43. His 
wounds powerful intercessors, 54, Why cruci- 
fied, 63. Cry out. My God, 81. Holds own body 
in hand.s, 85. Adored in Sacrament, 87. Never 
said He is God, 216. Dethroned dethrones Deity, 
221. Manifestation of the Word, 223. Where 
got blood to spill? 238.^ Temptation not by devil, 
248. Wrongly reported in John 14:35, 284. Body 
glorified finite matter, 217. Says to devil. Do 
you take me for a fool? 254. Overcame world 
proves nothingness, 341. Offered a blasphemous 



insult, by C. S., 342. If married children be God 
men? 620. Reason not marry, 620. God on ac- 
count of stupendous virtue, 220. 

Jesuits, running our schools, 291. 

Jewish, church once true church of God, 161. 
Women please God, not mutilated, 228. 

Jews, time let up execration of, 305. 

Job, genteel or white shirt, xxvi. 

Judas and Jews execrated, 53. 

Jubilee year 1901, procession, 187. 

Judges, allow receivers enormous pay, 664. 

Judgment, mere snare to entrap, 461. 

Jury, two-thirds ought to return verdict, 637. 

K 

Kink in the back, xxxii. Due to fall, 396. 

Kerbsene, causes death of six, 336. 

Keynotes, of a new church, 428. 

Kisses, must be confessed to priest, 153. Shrews- 
bury clock kind, 154. Keep not for dead brow, 
634. 

Kitchen mechanics, 90. 

Knowledge, pleasure in pursuit of, 374. Comes 
not through senses alone, 540. 



Laborers, country lacked faculty to save, 569. In 
liquor factories, 585. American standard of 
living higher, 673. Inability to save, 674. 

Lampreys, very dear, 410. 

Land, nationalize without compensation, 568. 
Private not defended on score of justice, 592. 
Values produced by labor, 594. Let out to 
highest bidders, 596. Estates, how be justly re- 
duced, 565. Honestly founded by ancestors, 566. 

Last wiggle of snake's tail, 348. 

Latent thinking, causes disease, 381. 

Latin or Greek languages, 79. 

Latter Day Saints, say God not omnipresent, 137. 

Law, higher overcome a lower, 841. Not fight 
over will, 572. 

Leave us not into temptation, 298. 

Lent, regulations for, 196. Trivialities about eat- 
in, 550. 

Liberalism, arraigns Christianity, 608. 

Lightning, strikes church, 545. Strikes Convent, 
546. Acts in obedience to law, 547. 

Lineman, transmuted, 473. 

Lion, ever see one chained going about? 232. 

Liquor, and tobacco, befogs brain, 334. Taste hard 
to break at once, 572. Ever handy to laborer, 
574. Odor destroys flavor of kisses, 576. Aver- 
age cost $70 family, 578. Undermining charac- 
ter, 581. Not condemn trafl^ckers in them, 
583. Causes pathetic scene in jail, 585. 

Literature, of Reformation if had come to us only, 
283. 

Little opera, for Mass, 93. 



691 



Live and let live, 561. Rule and guide, 682. 

Livingston, in lion's jaws, 508. 

Lodges, belongs to fourteen, 634. Responsible for 
immoralities of women, 635. Causes sorrow to 
families, 635. 

Lord, passion a failure, 56. Tasted soggy, 72. 
Adheres to, sacred linens, 75. Prayer, two signi- 
fications, 145. Had not where to rest his head, 
409. How worthy of Supper, 82. 

Love, token in form of sickness, 250. When be- 
comes lust, 482. Affinity of two differing cells, 
497. Disease, calf love, 498. Activity of the 
soul, 500. Slain by actions, 501. Sympathy a 
motor force, 502. Wear gossamer harness, 631. 
Poem, Love me, 637. Thrives in sunshine, 639. 
Better in cottage than in cabin, 640. 

Lungs, never sustained existence, 342. 

Luther, rejects reason, etc., 65. On rage of Ro- 
manists, 283. 

M 

Macoroni and cheese, 180. 

Machine, when invented, men starve, 568. 

Magnetism, previous to glass, 525. Currents how 
flow in man, 498. 

Maidens, conceived through the gods, 678. 

Male and female, be in each other's atmosphere, 
631. 

Mammals, learned to suck breast by practice, 471. 
Glands good only for others, 487. 

Man, and adopted children, angered, 47. Peter, 
James, one, 213. Breath of whisky jug, 234. 
Endowed with free will, 337. Incapable of sin, 
340. Mirrored reflection of God, 360. Indepen- 
dent worker, 360. Has no separate mind from 
God, 364. Is never sick, why need of C. S., 
then? 374. And woman in rooming house, 482. 
Denied i>owers of monkeys, 486. Sick, cannot 
stand, 493. Founds colony for given purpose, 
519. 75 years old kisses wife all the time, 576. 
Smokes twelve cigars daily, 581. Never be a, if 
not drink and smoke, 589. Belonged to seven 
lodges, 634. Wants soul in woman, 638. Be ape 
had rem&ined in tree, 472. Play home com- 
panionship to wife, 637. 

Manila, one street has now 18 saloons, 613. 

Marriage, Christian Scientists enter brother and 
sister relation, 344. Motives for entering some, 
501. Say, better than virginity, accursed, 616. 
Lowest state, priesthood highest, 617. Prime 
cause spiritual, 632. Loveless, unchaste union, 
632. Prime object companionship, 631, Without 
supreme affection, adultery, 633. When a lot- 
tery, 638. Golden Rule, bear and forbear, 640. 
Poor housekeeping causes unhappy, 639. A 
slave's life, 6Z6. Just as blessed as virginity, 
627. Impure look upon, as "weakness," 678. 

Married, newly, treated as "weak," 678. 



Marrimoniac, believe happiness can be bought, 
679. 

Mass, I never missed, XIX. Center of Catholic 
religion, 69. No Christianity where no, 69. Ajn 
error, blasphemy, 80. Honors God in worthy 
manner, 92. Stipends for, 93. High money 
high, etc., 93. Chief action on purgatory, 100. 
For one dead thirty-five years, 101. Its origin 
by Abbe Hue, 112. 

Masses, number announced in church, 93. Cost 
four million dollars a year, 94. 

Materia medica, doctors and drugs, 315. 

Mathematics, is from God, 124. Presents a thou- 
sand examples, 401. 

Matter, a chimera, 332. Nothing in Spirit out of 
which to make, 333. Why man cannot annihilate, 
334. If created, God responsible for disasters, 
336. Is passive, 337. In form of fire, 337. One 
kind common to all beings, 464. Endowed with 
sensation and will, 518. 

May devotions, origin, 125. Closing exercises, 128. 

Mechanical laws, as powerful as mortal mind, 455. 
True explanation of phenomena, 520. 

Medicines to further irritate, 325. If from God, 
why not formula, also? 373. 

Medium, who is a stranger, 269. 

Message, of Mrs. Eddy, fifty cents, 407. 

Milk, vomited out immediately, 71. 

Military life, depraves, 609. 

Million dollars, no one earn, 570. Not spend a, 571. 

Millionaires, should build yachts, 608. 

Mind, assimilating organ of soul, 295. World of 
sense believes man has his own, 364. Fed 
through senses, 649. 

Miners, confiscate wealth of, 673. 

Mining kings, "bonanza," 673. 

Ministers, thieves and robbers, 200. No power 
administer marriage rite, 200. Upturned to 
lordly salary, 407. 

Ministry of reconciliation, 153. 

Miracles, no longer needed, 86. Of saints equal 
Jesus', 217. 

Missionary, weighing 350 pounds, 38. 

Modern science, matter potentially alive all need- 
ed, 517. Turns out be nonsense, 518. 

Moneron, origin, 455. Structureless slime, 466. 

Money, will come from four corners, 436. The 
more, causes fuller gratification, 673. 

Monkeys, acquire colors, 484. 

Moon, diameter, 517. 

Moral, made by act of parliament, 575. Realm 
governed by law, 550. Fraught with great dan- 
ger, 18. 

Mortal, mind has no real existence, 333. Body, a 
delusion, 340. Men's counterfeit, 840. B«lieve 
is independent worker, 360. Free moral agent, 
366. 



692 



Mormon, says Catholic church mother of harlots, 
283. Same view- of Mark 16, 441. One foot on 
platform, 655. 

Mormonism, easier be undermined than, 534. 

Mortgages, exempted exempts rich capitalists, 
697. To tax, is double taxation, 597. Listed as 
deeds, 597. 

Moses, have erred likewise, 221. Gave laws God 
never gave, 296. Economy, many things wrong, 
light Christ brought, 297. 

Mother, of God, misnomer, 223. Lovely, put arm 
around, 346. Mental perturbation reacts on foe- 
tus, 503. In— law and immortality, 526. 

Mourn, with apparel, 629. Six months or more, 
629. 

MuUer, Max, rejects transmutation theory, 517. 

Mule, in dry pasture, 575. 

Murderer, went straight to heaven, 24. Spirit of 
Lord comes on "chaste," 287. 

Music, most elaborate character, 98. 

My God, I believe, XXI. 

N 

Nations, first-rate whips seventh rate, 187. If 

barbarians excuse for armies, 608.- Christian, 

increasing engines of war, 608. Peace footing, 

609. Debts of, 609. Strength in sympathy, 610. 

Benighted peoples, 613. Might makes right, 615. 

Better throw off mask of hypocrisy, 615. 
National pride, makes groan under debt, 610. 
Natural selection, as powerful as God, 485. Is a 

slow process, 486. 
Nature, innermost character as little understood, 

519. 
Nebulae, primal matter, 453. Why not eternal, 454. 
Negro, eyes burnt out, 481. Admire own color, 

484. Town not let stay in over night, 292, Not 

help color is black, 646. 
Nestorious, vindicated, 223. 
Neuralgia, an illusion, 330. 
Niggers, as Christian politicians would call them, 

646. 
Nihilism, why exists, 609. 
Northern sea, girls transported beyond, 432. 
North pole, problem solved by Christian Scientists, 

341. 
Nuns, Luther would save good .looking, 283. 

Rather see a daughter and sister, 630. 



O papa, have pity on me, 10. 

Obedience, of Jesus outweighs, 225. 

Office of Holy Week, 188. 

Oh, don't bother about cause, 330. 

Old maid, no reproach, 633. 

Old Testament, not bind church, 276. 

One Infallible Bible church, 289. 

One iota, church never yield, 207. 



Orator, not be, think so, 456. 

Organ, in body, not science treat every, 442. 

Organisms, without organs, 456. 

Original sin, doctrine rests on, 225. Nothing to do 

. with inclinations, 226. How transmitted if par- 
ents regenerated? 227. Calvin on, 227. Blas- 
phemous myth, 228. In all from day of concep- 
tion, 230. 

Orphan, has no friend on earth, 552. 

Outside limits legitimate domain, 250. 

Outward conditions of existence, external dissim- 
ilarity, 515. 

Oyster cracker, if eaten, 91. 



Pagan priests, required "honorariums," 676. 

Parental relation, daily anxieties, 626. 

Parents, beside themselves with grief, 626. Crosses 
brought on, by children, 627. Teach children 
faith, 200. 

Parturition, practice with mother, 471. 

Pat and Fritz, eat two ounces each, 197. 

Pensions, increasing, 611. Report of commission- 
er, 611. 

Perpetual adoration, of Eucharist, 546. Interrupt- 
ed, 546. 

Phonograph, used in courting, 638. 

Pigs, squeal, picked up, 507. 

Pious and devout, 90. 

Platform, of the One Church, 682. 

Poor Alley, nestling in, 618. 

Planets, once molten mass, 454. 

Pocket books, chief action on, 167. 

Poet, creation explained, 531. 

Police judge, on liquor, 587. 

Polyandry, been practice then, 274. 

Polygamy, right in David's time, 275. 

Poor house, never let me go to, 52. 

Pope, condemns excessive liberty of thought, 145. 
Made by French king, 176. How made infalli- 
ble, Dowie, 178. If not infallible why Moses be, 
290. With colossal intellect, 651. 

Pour fact upon fact, 375. 

Powerful eloquence, incipient, disease, 372. 

Prayer, for wisdom, xxii. Act of sorrow, 21. Of 
apostles, 119. Answered, may be coincidence, 
123. My Act of Love, 171. Why not answered 
at times, 650. Display of oratorical powers, 668. 

Presumptuous, put ignorance, 47. 

Premium on prodigality, 658. 

Priest — Priests, sit supinely back, 39. Wants 
some fun, too, 40. Sues for $75 funeral services, 
57. Lights cigar by stub, 101. Sort of public 
Stewart, 107. Goes to Germany for health, 111. 
Really forgives sins. 142. Prostrate before 
wafer God, 189. Make break in Gloria, 203. 
Have all heavenly powers, 245. Receive purses 
for traveling expenses, 410. Sources of revenue. 



693 



414. Massed out of purgatory, 41S. Wins first 
prize, card party, 618. Spares no effort for 
financial success, 623. Lays ofE vestment, takes 
up collection, 624. Forgets bring commnnion, 
625. In all ages ruled blind followers, 677. 

Pride, loss seen in houses, 234. Keeps from fall- 
ing into vice, 234. Sheet-anchor of virtue, 573. 

Principle, substitute for faith, 68. 

Prince of Peace. 608. 

Printing press, treated with Christology, 408. 

Procreative passion, how excited, 283. 

Prodigal Son, prototype Catholic confession, 151. 

Products should have free interchange, 672. 

Profit system, robbery, 599. 

Prohibitionists, drink on quiet, 246. 

Promise of final penitence, 182. 

Propose, if worthy enough, 633. How tobacco and 
liquor users, 634. 

Prosperity, too much, leads to downfall of nations, 
672. 

Protection, at variance with Fatherhood of God, 
672. 

Protestant, churches, human inventions, 209. 
Minister killed by car, 548. Worship, heretical, 
etc., 201. Exchange pulpits, 683. 

Protoplasm, common to all beings, 464. 

Public service companies, 603. 

Purgatory, two voices crying from, 100. By 
stretch divine mercy, 166. Yielding immense 
revenue, 167. Pains greater than all pains, 168. 
Souls contented in, 169. Justice of a, 174. Closed 
for want of souls, 185. 

Q 
Question is, does the church teach, 181. 
Quimby, died in 1865, C. S. discovered 1866, 328. 

R 
Race suicide, not among Socialists, 602. 
Railroads, not discriminate then, 602. 
Rationalism, fatal to faith, 146. 
Reason, right to use, 65. Assured me, am right, 

224. 
Rectories, cost of some, 413. 
Red in tooth and claw, 508. 
Redemption, Incarnation necessary, 46. Required 

death on cross, 51. 
Reform school, or parole, 277. 
Reformed C. S., Christology, 357. 
Reformation, hand of God in, 242. Work of Satan, 

243. 
Regeneration, signs of, 229. The resurrection, 265 
Regular mint, 571. 
Regular heretic, talked like, XXL 
Reincarnation, Theosophy believes in, 247. Why 

impossible, 268. 
Relationship, circle of, 150. 
Relief, called down for afflicted, 316. 
Religion, mechanical, 91. Tied in parcels, believe 



or be damned, 112. Of himianity, 211. Profes 
sion of my, a lie, 245. That is good enough for 
father, 294. Not "supernatural" operation of 
rites, 309. 

Rent, strips many of wealth, 555. Good one to 
pay $600, 596. 

Reproduction, comes from human belief, 346. 

Resurrection, priest on, funeral, 261. Chapter 1. 
Cor. 15, 262. Of the judgment, meaning, 263. 

Revelation, complete, beginning of Church, 181. 

Rheumatism, in every joint, 322. Healed thousand 
miles distant, 327. 

Rites, keep sensible out of church, 669. 

Roberts, Dr. on fear, 29. 

Rockefeller, Astor, parasites, 561. 

Roman, appropriate name, 12 Cardinals, 208. 

Rosary, perpetual, by Pope, 124. Thousands suc- 
ceeding each other saying, 124. Principal in 
Lent, 125. Common penance, 125. Nearly as 
large as dog chain, 125. Origin In thirteenth 
century, 185. Revealed to St. Dominic, 185. To 
count on a prayer fifty-three times, 679. 

Round chimeras, eagles on them, 332. 

Royalty, blue blood in, 519. Salaries of, 606. How 
remedy extreme between poor subjects and 607. 
Let fight among themselves, 610. 



S. and H., contains complete science, 404. 

Sabbath, commercialism sapping, 623. 

Sacrament, received ease minds of my people, 117. 

Sacred Heart, testimonials 120. Festival, origin, 
1675, 182. 

Sacrifice, highest worship, 80. Spiritual everyone 
can offer, 81. 

Sacrilege and blasphemy, worst kind, if am in 
error, 84. 

Schools of two kinds, 662. 

Shaver, John, on what tempts us, 656. 

Saint— Saints, God makes known, wants to, 116. 
To pray to for different things, 140. Should 
have been connonaded, 168. Peter's chair in- 
fallibly endowed, 179. Give probate judge some- 
thing to do, 183. Benedict's medal in water, 
heals, 217. Can, recall one from heaven? 220. 
Warrant of Scripture, pray to, 238. Paul arch- 
heretic to Jewish church, 277. Pray for crosses, 
626. Invoked not much less than Blessed Vir- 
gin, 649. 

Saloon, abominable, 371. Makes rich richer, 572. 
In conspicuous places, 573. Disreputable be 
seen drinking in, 573. Smashing, mean business, 
574. Keeper's wife and family dear to him, 574. 
Eradicated if laborers have "nice homes," 600. 
Debasing, detestable, 622. Keepers not con- 
demned, 622. 

Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis, 128. 

Sanctimonious face, 628. 



694 



Satan, no, no fall of man, 254. Jesus could not al- 
ter nature, 56. 

Saved, what means to be? 241. 

Scaffolding, no use to completed house, 469. 

Scapular, origrin, 183. Blessings received wearing, 
183. Saves burning convent, 184. 

Scripture, C. S. plays fast with, 362. 

Secret society member on jury, 636. 

See, stars eyes closed, xxxii. That you don't get 
caught, 161. 

Sects, jealous of one another, 554. 

Senses, limited in scope, 328. C. S. reverses testi- 
mony of, 343. Door to soul, 403. Assumed exis- 
tence, stimuli without, 494. 

Serves the country, farmer, 611. 

Service, highest to God, 294. 

Sexual selection, solve race problem, 484. 

Sickness, every kind from devil, 252. Not quality 
of soul, 352. Cannot exist, 357. Mortal inven- 
tion, 363. Sin responsible for, 366. Always hal- 
lucination, 376. Not transgression divine law, 
379. Unchristian believe, not illusion, 878. 

Silks and Satins, put out kitchen fire, 605. 

Silly people, reject Darwinian theory, 490. 

Sin, no immunity from punishment, 18. Not for- 
given unless forsaken, 150. Not quality of soul, 
352. An illusion, nothing, 352. Sense of, lost 
not soul, 363. Responsible for sickness, 366. 

Single Tax, abolish all tax save land, 594. 

Sinners, suffer no Canaanites to live, 199. How 
repent, barred from church? 282. 

Sisters, comment on my faith, xx. Rosaries on 
belt, 125. Adore before Blessed Sacrament, 546. 
Go to hall on Sunday, 622. Have Sunday picnic, 
622. 

Social glass, drinks, on dangerous ground, 298. 
Friendship sake, 586. 

Socialism, tends away from religion, 556. Favors 
co-operation, 559. Products in central stores, 
560. Government ownership wealth producing 
industries, 560. Wants age of business to end, 
601. State aid for books, 601. Deprives ambi- 
tion of incentive, 605. 

Socialist, says future belongs to Atheism, 556. 
Contemplates ending profits, 599. 

Sock, enters itself, 85. 

Soda, is sin to drink? 236. 

Sofa, took rests on, 347. 

Soldier's, experience in battle, 270. Feels nothing 
in battle. 509. Have Bibles in pockets, conse- 
crated bread, 612. 

Solomon, a ladies man, 214. 

Son, stubborn and unruly, 277. 

Soul, yearns for God, 6. Unbaptizcd catechumen, 
recalled, 219. Does God create, for hell? 227. 
Condition after separated from body, 259. Of 
man is God, 335. No finite, 358. Not seen in 
body, 359. Man has immortal, 369. Woman no 
longer believes la in body, 359. Liquefy by high 



temperature, 524. Reason brought belief in, 
527. Animal, why not immortal, 529. No special 
creation, each, 530. Offspring of parents, 631. 
Animal life says Dowie, 533. Attacked not from 
without, 656. 

Special creation, lighting first candle, 459. Reason 
authority for, 496. Hypothesis worthless, 506. 
Geology favors, 516. Doctrine superlative non- 
sense, 538. 

Species, have fixed type, 469. Best at genesis on 
earth, 516. 

Spectral analysis, shows same matter, 517. 

Spirit, and life how put on, 75. World not as the- 
ology teaches, 269. Myriads waiting for bodies, 
534. 

Spontaneous generation, not a fact, 521. 

State, bleeding, etc., 11. 

Statute of limitations, 663. 

Stenographer, Dowie not heal, 219. 

Stimulant, one requires another, 381. 

Stove, as leave pray to, 301. No longer "draw," 
409. 

Street car, mishap, xxxii. 

Structure, similarity, general plan, 516. 

Suggestion, in C. S., 326. 

Sun, diameter, 517. Stood still, no longer believed, 
286. 

Supernatural, production not now necessary, 459. 
Providences of Holy water, etc., 547. 

Sure goner, 324. 

Survival of fittest, reversed in infant, 511. 

Sweetest of the sweet, 576. 

T 

Tallow, from cow, 189. 

Taste, drunkenness is sin no matter what, 311. 

Tax, manufacture, checks it, 594. 

Ten dollar blows, in bawdy houses, 557. 

Temperance, how brought about, 575. 

Temptations, cause of discerned by others, 657. 

Tempter, impelling forces in us, 242. 

Theatre, variety, immoral, 578. 

Theological mythoplasm, man a, 332. 

Theology, never had a course in, 683. 

Theosophist, never be one, 247. 

Think, too much time to, xix. If Pope likes or 
not, 145. One minute noble things, 236. It, 
prophecy of fulfillment, 435. 

Thousand dollars saved, 557. 

Thrift, recommended to poor, insulting, 569. 

Through operation of mind, 75. 

Tobacco, users, how propose, 393. Filthy odor, 
393. Amount cost annually, 582. Causes women 
not marry, 582. Users not condemned, 583. Yet 
be manufactured, 584. Give chew to boy 10 
years old, 584. Rivulet down chin, 584' Fac- 
tories converted, 585. Railroad forbids use, 589. 
Chewing disgusting habit, 689. 

Tongue, the year round, 198. 



695 



Tnu:t, Is your prayer answered? 315. 

Tradition, church as soon have, 307. Fits her 
doctrines better, 661. 

Train goes through bridge, 254. 

Traffic, neither friendship, in, 429. 

Transmutation, like begetting unlike, 457. Theory 
scientific mistake, 513. 

Transubstantiation, one question too much for, 
70. Text fatal to, 77. 

Travesty on justice, 636. 

Treatment formula, Christology, 437. 

Trinity, principle doctrine, 214. Illustrated by 
Dowie, 215. 

Trunk full of gold, if saved, 559. 

Truth, fears no light, 680. 

Tuition, of $300 for C. S., 409. 

Tumbler, not carry size 3c, 426. 

Tumble-down shanties, 594. 

Twins, why look much alike, 503. 

Typhoid fever, healed with ice water, 423. 
U 

Unbeliever, regards sin as nothing, 352. Sent for 
doctor, 509. What to do in case like that, 660. 

Understanding, complete submission, 2. 

Unitarians nearer right than Trinitarians, 223. No 
lot with Christ, 258. Getting on platform, 655. 

Unless and except, what is difference, 73. 

Unions, prevent giving value for less than is 
worth, 561. 

Universe, God condensed, 452. Self -existent, 542. 

Utah Mormons; why not right to plural wives? 274. 
V 

Varieties, new supplant old, 487. 

Vedanta philosophy, on evil, 256 

Venereal disease, torments victim; 379. Husband 
became infected, innocent, 379. 

Verbiage, nothing impose better, 133. Admired 
by all ists, 330. 

Vestments, costing $500,000,'96. 

Vermiform appendage, proof theory Descent, 522. 
Proves truth of Gen. 1:29, 522. 

Vice, support one, bring up two children, 605. 

Victory, no, without combat, 675. 

Virginity, God not pleased first parents vowed, 
616. Chosen by Christ, 619. Embrace, shows 
good taste, 618. Not without solicitude, 625. 
Not said anything about, but, 628. Not regard- 
ed with contempt, 630. Would have been better 
for such, 630. Rehc of paganism, 675. Of church 
real and pure, 678. 

Virtue, for married men, evenings, 198. 

Vision, had no, xvii. From top of mountain, 258. 
W 

War, God nothing to do with, 285. Makes brutes 
of men, 608. Hell of hells, 610. No place be- 
tween Christian nations, 611. 

Washing of feet, warrant of Scripture, 670. 



Water, displaces in jar full of, 268. 

Wave, of Atheism sweeping world, 681. 

Way of the Cross, sung in English, 204. 

Wealth, unequal distribution, cause in individual, 
557. Blame ancestors for, 558. Of nations 
means railroads, etc., 560. Inequality caused by 
ownership of land, 593. 

Whale, ancestor land quadrupeds, 474. 

Whiskey, rot-gut, etc 109. Soaks, 166. 

Widow, give her two dollars a week, 169. 

Wife, live with folks of, XXIX. "False" woman, 
23. Buys hat for $15, 166. Wealthy, buys $7 
hat, 604. Enjoying paradise of gods, 677. 

Wild geese, kill two one shot, 493. 

Will, of God, everything happens according to, 
255. Old and new, 276. 

Will-power, illusion, use be condemned, 366. To 
say No, just as strong, 370. Better than "su- 
pernatural" aids, 372. 

Wireless telegraphy, tested, 525. 

Wives suffer in silence perverted tastes of hus- 
bands, 681. 

Woman, God's noblest creature, 272. Life only 
feeding and breeding, in old dispensation? 274. 
Unclean giving birth' 288. Shame to speak in 
church, 309. Breaks leg bv collecting for church 
547. Maternal strongest instinct, 583. Makes 
more over poodle dog, 619. Married infant in 
arms, shows good taste. 628. Married should 
have greater crown, 697. Loses life giving 
births, 679. 

Women, chase men, 141. How know carnally 
known man? 274. Beautiful, brave men, to love, 
537. Not marry tobacco, filthy, men, 583. The 
real money savers, 604. Readier forgive for 
adultery, 635. 

Wolf, sensible man remove, 253. 

Wool, pulled from eyes, 667. 

Word, made flesh, leaves God same, 222. God con- 
densed, 452. 

Workingman, be a Socialist, 560. 

World, population time of Christ, 86. No child's 
toy, 130. Become immortal of, 191. Dissolve by 
spontaneous generation, 285. Presents no defi- 
nite aim, 514. Beautiful to evolutionist, 536. 

Worship, Protestant mere spectacle, 90. Protes- 
tant consists of, 202. Catholic consists of, 203. 

Worthy of promise of Christ, 78. 

Writers, inspired, may have been false, 287. 
Y 

Yogi, go naked, 343, 

You all hate me, make. 247. 

You are well and you knnw it, 326. 

Young man, stop drinking, 577. In teens, a de- 
bauchee, 580. Of ten dollar "blows" married, 
580. 

Z 

Zigzag or criss-cross, 328. 



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